Yet even so he, Wiley Holman, had fully safeguarded his interests, for by his other option he could buy all Blount’s stock for the sum of five cents a share. The four hundred thousand-odd shares would come to only twenty thousand dollars, as against fifty thousand on the bond and lease; and yet, by buying the stock at once, he could effectually debar Blount from any share in the accumulating profits. The small payments on past royalties and his five cents a share would be all that Blount would receive; and then he would be left, a spectacle for gods and men–a banker who had been beaten by a boy. It was the chicanery of Blount which had ruined his father and driven Colonel Huff to his death, and what could be better, as poetic justice, than to see him hoist on his own petard. And if the Colonel was not dead–as would appear from Charley’s maunderings–if he could be discovered and brought back to town, then surely Virginia would forget the old feud and consent to be his wife. All this lay before him, a fairyland of imaginings, waiting only her magic touch to make it real; just a word, a smile, a promise of forgiveness–and of loyalty and love–and 163he, Wiley Holman, would go whirling on the errand that would win him wealth and renown.
It would all be done for her, and yet he would not be the loser, for his own father held two hundred thousand shares of Paymaster; and he himself would save a fifty-thousand-dollar payment at an expense of a little over twenty. And if the Colonel could be found quickly–or his death disproved to make illegal the Widow’s transfer of his stock–then the mine could be claimed at once and Blount deprived even of his royalties. Of course this could all be done without the help of Virginia or the co-operation of any of the Huffs for, although his father had refused from the first to have anything to do with the mine, Wiley knew that he could talk him over and persuade him to pool his stock. That would make six hundred thousand, a clean voting majority and a fortune in itself; but for the sake of Virginia, and to heal the ancient feud, it would be better to unite with the Huffs.
Wiley paced up and down in the crisp, dry snow and watched for Virginia to come, and as his mind leapt ahead he saw her enthroned in a mansion, with him as her faithful vassal–when he was not her lord and king. For the Huffs were proud, even now in their poverty, and Virginia was the proudest of them all; and in this, their first meeting, he must remember what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It should be his part to speak with humility and dwell but 164lightly on the past while he pictured a future, entirely free from menial service, in which she could live according to her station. All her years of poverty and disappointment and loneliness would be forgotten in this sudden rise to wealth; and to complete the picture, Blount, the cause of all her suffering, would grovel, very unbankerlike, at their feet.
Blount would grovel indeed when he felt the cold steel that would deprive him of all his stock, for he was still playing the game with his loans and extensions in the hope of winning back what he had lost. For money was his god, before whom there was no other, and he worshiped it day and night; and all his fair talk was no more than a pretense to lure Wiley into the net. Yet not for a minute would Wiley put up his option, or his bond and lease on the mine; and for all the money that Blount had loaned him he had given his mere note of hand. It was his promise to pay, unsecured by any collateral, and yet it was perfectly good. The money came and went–he could pay Blount at any time–but it was better to rehabilitate the mine.
Wiley had a race before him, a race for big stakes, and he kept his eyes on the goal. To earn fifty thousand dollars in six months’ time, earn it clean above all expense, required foresight and careful management, and a big daily output, for every day must count. The ore on the dump was in the nature of a grub-stake, a bonus for undertaking 165the game; and when it was all shipped the profits would drop to nothing unless he could bring up more ore. So he took his first checks, and what he could borrow, and timbered and cleaned out the mine; and, to save shipping out more ore, he had ordered expensive machinery to put the old mill into shape. It was the part of good judgment to spend quickly at first and build up the efficiency of his plant; and then the last few months, when Blount would begin to gloat, make a run that would put him in the clear. Clear not only of the bond and lease, but on Blount’s stock as well, for it would pay for itself with the first dividend; and, to save paying any more royalties, Wiley was curtailing his wasteful shipments while he prepared to concentrate the ore in his mill.
There were envious people in town who prophesied his failure and claimed that success had gone to his head, but he was confident he could show them that a man can take chances and yet play his cards to win. He had taken chances with Blount when he had accepted his money, for there were other banks that would lend on his mine; but in what more harmless way could he engage his attention and keep him from actual sabotage?
It was that which he dreaded, the resort to open warfare, the fire and vandalism, and dynamite; and day and night he kept his eye on the works, and hired a night-watchman, to boot. But as long as Blount was convinced he could win back the mine peaceably he would not resort to violence 166and, though Stiff Neck George still hung about the camp, he kept scrupulously away from the Paymaster.
As Christmas day wore on and the sun came out gleaming, Wiley swung off down the trail and through the town. He was a big man now, the man who had saved Keno after ten years of stagnation and lingering death; and yet there were those who disliked him. They recited old stories of his shrewd dealings with Mrs. Huff, and with Virginia and Death Valley Charley; and if any were forgotten the Widow undoubtedly recalled them. She was a shrewish woman, full of gossip and backbiting, and she let no opportunity pass; so that even old Charley cherished a certain resentment, though he disguised it as solicitude for the Huffs. And so on Christmas day, as Wiley walked down the street, many greetings lacked a holiday heartiness.
The front room of the Huff house was full of children and, as Wiley walked back and forth, he caught a glimpse of Virginia; but she did not come out and, after lingering around for a while, he climbed up the trail to the mine. He had caught but a glimpse, but it was clean-cut as a cameo–a classic head, eagerly poised; dark hair, brushed smoothly back; and a smile, for some neighbor’s child. That was Virginia, high-headed and patrician, but kind to lame dogs and lost cats. She had invited in the children but he, Wiley Holman, who had loved her since she was a 167child, had been permitted to pass unnoticed. He wandered about uneasily, then went back to his office and began to run over his accounts.
Over a hundred thousand dollars had passed through his hands in less than a calendar month and yet the long haul across the desert from Vegas had put him in the hole. Besides the initial cost of cables and timbers–and of a rock breaker and the concentrating plant–there was a charge of approximately twenty dollars a ton for every pound of supplies he hauled out. And, because of the war, all supplies were high and the machinery houses were behind with their orders; yet so eager were the buyers to get hold of his tungsten that they almost took it out of the bins. He was storing up the ore, preparatory to milling it and shipping only the concentrates; but if they could have their way they would wrest it from his hands and rush it to the railroad post haste. One mysterious buyer had even offered him a contract at seventy dollars a unit–three dollars and a half a pound!