It was not like Virginia to resort to any violence–she had been humiliated too often by her mother’s–but she must still think he had deprived her of her rights. By what process of reasoning could they fix the blame on him for this stock which had been 173purloined by Blount, was beyond his strictly masculine mind; but women sometimes think by jumps. They skip a few processes, like a mathematical prodigy, and then arrive at some mammoth result. But, even if they exaggerated their grievance–was there anything behind it, any peg on which to hang this senseless hate?
Well, of course he had deceived them about the mine. He had known it contained scheelite the moment he picked up that white rock that Virginia had placed in her collection, but naturally he had not announced it from the house-tops. With the Widow as a partner, or even as a stockholder, the best-natured man in the state of Nevada could not have worked the Paymaster at a profit. For that reason alone he had been fully justified in letting her freeze herself out; and if Virginia had taken his advice–but then, the poor girl had been distracted. She had been worn out and discouraged, hag-ridden by her mother and facing a trip to the city; and she had sold out for what she could get. She was a good girl, a brave girl, and a sweet and lovely one too; and it was foolish to blame her for anything. The thing to do, after all, was to find ways and means of bringing her back to her own. Just a word from Virginia and he could change her whole life, he could get back all her stock and her mother’s as well and pour money into their laps–but first he must win her love. He must teach her to trust him, break down her suspicion and show her that he was her friend.
174Wiley thought a long time and the next morning at dawn he was up in his car and away. Virginia was a child. She did not reason about this and that, but was swayed by the impulses of the moment. Her life was ruled, not by her head but by her heart; and he had forgotten until that moment the sacks full of cats that he had taken from her house to the ranch. They were all her pets, and he had taken them as a trust when she was about to start for Los Angeles; but the mine had made him forget. They were safe at the ranch, with his sisters to look after them; but how many times since their estrangement began must some question have risen to her lips as to how they were, or if he would bring them back, or whether any had died or been lost? Yet she had turned her head away and refused to speak to him, even to demand back the pets she loved.
The road was bad out across the desert, and on through Vegas to the ranch, but he came thundering back the next night. He had left the mine to run itself, for his thoughts were of Virginia, but as he slowed down at the sand-wash and listened for the pumps he noticed that the engine had stopped. Well, he had an engineer and that was his business–to keep the sump-hole pumped out; perhaps he had shut down for repairs. But the big thing, after all, was to restore Virginia her pets and win his way to a place in her heart. He drove boldly up the street and stopped before the house, but nobody came to the door. He waited 175a while, then leapt out uncertainly and released the mother of Virginia’s pet kittens. She ran under the house and, as no one came out, Wiley let the rest of them go and turned disconsolately back towards the mine. If he had ever thought, when he had the Widow arrested, that Virginia was going to take it so hard–but then, of course, it had been absolutely necessary–and just wait till she found her kittens!
There was trouble in the engine-house. He knew that the minute he saw the dancing torches in the dark, and he went up the trail on the run; but when he saw the wreckage, and the gear-wheel dismounted, he burst into a wailing curse. The mine had been all right, pumps operating, hoist running, when he had left the day before; but the minute he turned his back─
“What’s the matter?” he demanded and then, pushing the engineer aside, he flashed a torch on the wreck. Wedged in the gearing of the shattered gear-wheel was a pair of engineer’s overalls. They had jammed tight in the teeth and the resistless driving of the engine had cracked the great gear-wheel like an eggshell. Held solid by its base in the bolted concrete there had not been a half-inch’s play and, since something must give, and the opposing wheel had stood, the enormous casting had smashed. The engineer and his helpers were pottering about, trying guiltily to remove the cause of the accident, but one look was enough to tell Wiley Holman that his mine was closed down for 176a week. No welding could ever repair that broken gear-wheel–he would have to wire for another.
“Whose overalls are those?” he asked at last as the men sought to evade his eye and the engineer himself confessed ownership.
“They’re an old pair of mine,” he explained, “that got caught when I was wiping up the grease.”
“What? Wiping up grease when the machinery was in motion? Why didn’t you wait until it stopped?”
“Well–I didn’t; that’s all. There was a big puddle of grease gathering dirt underneath there–and I thought I’d wipe it up.”