The Rider of the Mohave: A Western Story

by James Fellom

And yet, taken as a whole, this aggregation of grafters which had its tentacles spread out across the entire Geerusalem mining district, slowly killing the spirit of industry and discovery without which no camp can live, were of themselves not only lacking in strength but devoid of the necessary courage to defy the decent element of the town, had the latter voiced objection to their tactics. Whatever influence the Quintell crowd possessed, the very success of their lawless enterprise, in fact the death grip they had on the camp—these things they owed to that majority of population that seems as much a part in the founding of a settlement in the wilderness, as its tents and rock huts—the underworld.

Here had forgathered the undesirable from the four winds—gunmen, thieves, criminals of high and low degree, and they kept flocking in and plied their vicious trades without fear of interruption. And flocking in, also, came the type of woman that men know best and fall easier prey to because they do, while added to these denizens of the city’s slums, were the drifters, adventurers, and saloon hangers-on, all bent on getting their share of gold at some other fellow’s expense.

With this formidable army of undesirables at its back, the Quintell crowd ruled Geerusalem, and from it, chose its tools who went out at night and beat up men, drove them off their claims, killed them if they proved too troublesome. These tools got money for their work. The element as a whole got protection—license to carry on as its membership saw fit without interference from the local authorities, whom Quintell, through bribe and political influence, held in the hollow of his hand. Crime thrived accordingly, and the remote cases that did come up for trial in the courts proved ridiculous farces conducted more to impress the County Bar Association at the distant county seat that jurisprudence was on the job, than as a matter of stern equity.

Now, on the very day that Lemuel Huntington had brought Billy Gee a prisoner into camp, Quintell’s field men reported that Tinnemaha Pete had discovered a rich gold ledge on the Huntington ranch. Late that afternoon, while Lex Sangerly and Detectives Coates and Tyler were searching for the outlaw’s loot at the ranch house half a mile away, Quintell experts were investigating the ground with a view of determining the extent of the deposit and estimating its value.

They returned, bringing word that the find was a bonanza from the grass roots, that the hill on the west end of the Huntington ranch carried the croppings of three parallel ledges that apparently were a continuation of the Geerusalem mineral belt. Tinnemaha Pete’s location notices were made out in the names of Peter Boyd and Jerome Liggs.

Jule Quintell and his confederates held a two-hour meeting that evening. They listened to the reports of the experts, heard them voice the opinion that the new discovery promised to be a monumental strike, eclipsing anything ever opened up before in the district. They sat silent, grim of face, ominous, and blew wreaths of smoke toward the ceiling. Presently they began discussing the matter.

They must acquire this ground. The Geerusalem mines were good producers, but here was something far better. Moreover, a sister camp on the same mineral belt, only four miles distant, meant that its owners would be millionaires overnight. It was not a proposition of doing business with Tinnemaha Pete and Jerome Liggs. Whoever these desert rats were did not enter into the issue, for though they had found and located the deposit, they had no legal claim to it. Lemuel Huntington owned the ground; it was patented ground. Lemuel Huntington was the man they must deal with—Lem used to hobnob with the crowd before he captured Billy Gee and got a start in the world.

The meeting was held in Boss Quintell’s spacious private office in the Brokers’ Exchange Building, a three-story frame structure that housed the elaborate publicity and advertising departments—so essential to successful wildcatting—of three of Geerusalem’s most prominent stockbrokers.

Messengers began arriving, one to say that Huntington and his daughter had left for San Francisco, another with the information that railroad detectives were occupying the ranch house.

Quintell advanced the scheme to be followed for the acquisition of the bonanza strike. “Big George” Rankin, owner of the Northern Saloon and dominant figure in the camp’s underworld, was in San Francisco on business. He was wired to meet Huntington and his daughter at the ferry terminal, follow them, and telegraph back the name of the hotel they put up at. Dick Lennox, a young mining engineer—one of the lesser lights of the gang, but more intimate with the rancher than any member of it—was chosen to go to the metropolis and try to bargain for the purchase of the ranch. The thing was to see Huntington before he returned to Geerusalem, for, as Quintell pointed out, it was just possible that Dot’s father, once back in the country, would hear rumors of the discovery of mineral on his ground and refuse to sell except at his own terms. Lemuel, then, must not surmise there was one pennyweight of gold on his land. The land must be bought for a song, as it were.