The banks were full of gold–they were shipping it to America in lots of ten and twelve million at a time–but tungsten was rare, it was necessary, almost priceless, and the demand for it increased by leaps and bounds. How could iron-masters harden the tools that were to turn out the mighty cannon that this gold had been sent over to buy, unless they could get the tungsten? Molybdenum, vanadium, manganese, and all the substitutes were commandeered to take its place; but month by month the price of tungsten crept up until now all the West was tungsten-mad. It had gone up from forty dollars to sixty, and now seventy, for a twenty-pound unit of concentrates–running sixty per cent or better of tungstic acid–and as Wiley resumed his shipments he received a frantic offer of seventy-five dollars a unit. And then once more he smiled.
There had been a time when he had felt the cold hand of Blount closing down on his precious mine–and the other banks had refused to take over his notes. The property was not his, there was nothing tangible upon which to make a loan; and 189then, Blount had passed the word around. Wiley was indebted to him, and heavily indebted, and when he took the apple there would be no core for the rest. But now in a week the whole situation had changed and Wiley’s smile brought forth answering smiles. The general store in Vegas extended his credit, even his supply-house had heard the good news; and Blount, who had grown arrogant, became suddenly friendly and fawning, trying vainly to cover up his hand. He was like a man who had clutched at a treasure and discovered himself a little too soon. The treasure was still Wiley’s but–well, Blount was used to waiting, so he smiled and extended the notes.
At three dollars and more a pound it would not take many tons of tungsten to put Wiley safely out of the hole, but when he ran over his accounts he was startled by the bills that were piling up against him. A thousand dollars was nothing to these mining machinery houses and his payroll was over two hundred a day; and then there was powder and timber and steel, and gasoline and oil, andthe freight across the desert. That went on everything, twenty dollars a ton whether they hauled both ways or one; and with so much at stake he had to treat everyone generously or run the chance of being tied up by a strike. Nor was there lacking the sinister evidence of some unfriendly if not hostile force, and as breakdowns recurred and unexpected accidents happened, Wiley came and went like a ghost. His gun was always 190 on him and he watched each man warily, seeking out his enemies from his friends.
As for Virginia and her mother, he had long since given up hope of stopping their venomous tongues; and Death Valley Charley, finding the pressure too strong, had conveniently dropped out of sight. In all that town, which he had found dead and unpeopled and had changed in a few months to a live camp, there was not a single soul that he could truthfully say was honestly and unquestionably his friend. It was not that they were against him, for most of them realized that their own success was bound up with his; but they were not actively for him, they did not boost and help him, but joined in on the old anvil chorus. He had cheated the Widow, he had beaten Virginia out of her stock, he had taken advantage of Death Valley Charley! But, they added–and this was what galled him–what else could you expect from the son of Honest John?
Wiley gritted his teeth, but he did not speak his mind for the hour of vindication was at hand. When he had paid off his notes and his bills for supplies the first thing he would do, even before he took over the mine, would be to buy in Blount’s Paymaster stock. And with that stock in his hands, with every tell-tale endorsement to prove the damning story of Blount’s guilt, he would go to these old-timers and make them eat their words when they said his father was not honest. But as far as he was concerned, what difference 191did it make whether they considered him honest or not? Would they feel any more kindly towards his honest old father when he had proved that he had been faithful to the end? No, they thought they were virtuous and only denouncing injustice, but when that charge was taken out of their mouths they would clack on out of jealousy at his success. It was envy that really poisoned their minds and made them spit forth spleen, envy and chagrin at their own lack of foresight.
The Paymaster dump had lain right at their doorway where all of them could inspect its ore, but no one had noticed the heavy spar. They had called it white quartz and dismissed it from their minds, but he had come among them with different eyes. He had gone to a school of mines, where he had learned to identify minerals, and he had kept up with the mining magazines; and while these poisonous knockers had been lamenting the results of the war he had jumped in and turned it to his advantage. He had done something practical, to the improvement of industry, something that might change in a certain measure, the very destiny of the world; but the moment he succeeded they had accused him of robbing half-wits and of oppressing the widow and the orphan. Wiley shut down his jaws and smiled dourly.
There was small hope now of changing the widow and her “orphan” but if he could not convert them he could show them. As sure as he knew anything he was convinced that Colonel Huff had simply 192fled from his wife’s nagging tongue and, when he got the time, Wiley intended to hire a pack-train and set out across Death Valley to find him. Virginia came and went, but always she avoided him scrupulously. Not once since she had returned from Vegas had she met his questioning eyes; and to all his advances she turned a deaf ear, if the statements of Charley could be trusted. The carefully thought out scheme of getting back the Huff stock and then forming an alliance against Blount had died before it was born; or it remained at best in suspended animation, pending Death Valley Charley’s return. He had gone off with his burros but the longer Wiley waited on him the more he saw that Charley was a broken reed. No, the trimming of Blount, if it was done at all, would have to be done by him–and all he needed was time.
Two months and a little more lay between him and the day of reckoning–the twentieth day of May. In that short time he must meet heavy obligations, pay off his notes, buy Blount’s stock and purchase the mine; and if anything should happen–if the hoist should break down, the mill blow up, the market for tungsten fail–well, he could kiss the Paymaster good-by. The market and other influences were on the knees of the gods, but Wiley decided that there should be no more accidents. That was something preventable and no more love-sick engineers were going to use his gearings for a clothes mangle. He engaged 193two watchmen who were mechanics as well and then he kept watch over his watchmen. Neither by day nor by night did he go down the hill for more than a few minutes at a time and on dark, stormy nights he wandered about like a specter watching the shadows for Stiff Neck George. He was out there somewhere, Wiley knew it as instinctively as he knew that Virginia hated him, and yet he never appeared. He never made threats nor showed himself in the open but, somewhere, he was out there in the darkness; and sooner or later he would strike.
The days dragged on slowly, with cold, March winds and sandstorms boiling in over Shadow Mountain; and then driving rain followed by bright, sunny weather and struggling flowers in the swales. It was spring, in a way, but not the spring of yester-year, with its songs and laughter and high hopes. Wiley felt the old call to be up and away, but his racer remained in its shed. He paced about restlessly, waiting for something to happen, observing the slightest signs–and then he found her tracks in the dust. Virginia had come up the trail in the night and had gone down past the mill. He knew her tracks well and, among the broad brogans of the miners, they stood out like the footprints of a fairy. Wiley’s heart leapt up in his breast–and then it stood still. Had she come as an enemy or a friend?
He followed her trail to where it had been trampled out by the watchman in making his regular rounds; 194and then, below the mill, he picked it up again as it went on down the path. Not once had she hesitated or turned from the beaten trail, but she had gone down after the graveyard shift. That went on at eleven and her tracks were superimposed on the hob-nailed boot-marks of the miners. When they had come off shift they had trampled them out again, except for a print here and there; and by the color of the dust Wiley shrewdly judged that she had visited him between twelve and one. Between the wind-blown footprints of the night-shift and the fresh red of the day shift as they had mounted the trail at seven, her high-arched steps had been made about midnight, for the dust had been whitened by the air. Wiley followed them silently, trampling them out as he went, and that night as the graveyard shift came on he slipped out and hid by the trail. What kind of a watchman was this, who let a woman come and go and never even saw her tracks in the dust? He could watch for Virginia; and meanwhile, incidentally, he could keep tab on this sleepy-headed guard.