Rimrock Trail Part 37

Sandy lit the big lamp as they all rose, Grit nosing the engineer, accepting him.

"Sure is," he said. "You know Miss Bailey, Westlake? Miss Keith an' Miss Nicholson, Mr. Westlake. They both know something about you. Come to stay, I hope."

His voice was cordial as he gripped Westlake's hand, though the remembrance of what Sam had said at the mining camp leaped up within him. Westlake and Molly! Here was a man who might mate with her, might suit her wonderfully well. Upstanding, educated, no lightweight pleasure-seeker, as he estimated Donald Keith. Here was a complication in his dreams of happiness that he had lost sight of. He saw the two appraising each other and approving.

"If you can put up with me, for a bit," said Westlake. "I've come partly on business, Bourke. I've left Casey Town."

He seemed to speak with some embarra.s.sment, glancing toward Molly. Sandy sensed that something had happened with his relations with Keith.

"You're more than welcome," he said. "Any one with you?"

"No, I came over with a machine from the garage at Hereford," he said.

"I'll get my things and send him back."

Sandy went outside with him and helped him with his grips. The machine started.

"Quit Keith?" asked Sandy.

"Yes, we had a misunderstanding. About my staying here, Bourke. It may be a bit awkward. Young Donald Keith intends coming over. I am sure he doesn't know a thing about his father's business affairs. But I have a strong hunch that Keith himself will be along later to offset any talk he thinks I may have with you. He'll figure I've come here. He doesn't know all that I have found out, at that. If it's likely to embarra.s.s you or your guests in the least I'll go on to Denver to-morrow. I'm headed that way. I've got a South American proposition in view. Wired them yesterday and may hear at any minute."

"Shucks!" said Sandy. "Yo're my friend. Young Keith don't interest me, save as Molly wants to entertain him. I'm under no obligations to Keith himse'f. Yo're my guest an' we'll keep you's long we can hold you in the corral. As fo' Molly, you don't know her. If it come to a show-down between you an' Keith, with you in the right, there ain't any question as to where she'd horn in."

"I had no idea Miss Casey would be like--what she is," said Westlake, as Miranda Bailey, Mormon in attendance, came out of the house.

"Time fo' me to be trailin' back," said the spinster. "Moon's risin'.

Good night, Mr. Westlake. See you ag'in before you go, I hope. I reckon you sure gave me good advice when you said to take cash fo' my claims."

She climbed into the machine which Mormon cranked. It moved off, Mormon watching it. Then Sam came out and joined them.

"Gels gone to bed," he announced. "What's Keith doin' up to Casey Town, Westlake?"

"It won't take long to tell you."

The four walked over to the corral and the three partners climbed on the top rail, ranch-fas.h.i.+on. Westlake stood before them.

"Practically all the gold found in Casey Town comes from the main gulch where the creek runs. The gulch was once non-existent. It is likely there was a hill there. Its nub was a porphyry cap, the rest of it was composed of layers of porphyry and valueless rock dipping downward, nested like saucers in the synclinal layers. Ice and water wore off the nub and leveled the hill, then gouged out the gulch. They ground away, in my belief, all the porphyry that held gold except the portions now lying either side of the gulch. That gold was distributed far down the creek, carried by glacier and stream. Casey found indications and worked up to where he believed he had struck the mother vein. He did strike it but it had been worn down like the blade of an old knife.

"It was the top layers that held the richest ore. Of those that are left only one carries it and that is the reef that outcrops here and there both sides of the gulch. This isn't theory. All strikes have been made in this top layer. Where they have sunk through to a lower porphyry stratum they have found only indications where they found anything at all. But the strikes were rich because sylvanite is one of the richest of all gold ores. They look big and they encourage further development and--what is more to the point--further investment. Some of the strikes have been on the Keith Group properties. They have boosted the stock of all of them.

"I have been developing these group projects. The value of group promotion, to the promoter, is, that as long as one claim shows promise, the shares keep selling. The public loves to gamble. Keith came back this trip and proposed to purchase a lot of claims that are nothing but plain rock, surface dirt and sage-brush. They are not even on the main gulch. He can buy them for almost nothing. But he does not propose to sell them for that. He was going to start another group. He ordered me to make the preliminary surveys. Later I was to plan development work, to make a showing for his prospectus.

"He knew one would have as much chance digging in a New York back-yard.

I told him so. He has his own expert and, if he didn't tell him so too, he's a crook.

"Keith said he understood his business and suggested I should attend strictly to mine. I told him I understood mine and that it included some personal honor. I was hot. I suggested that wildcat development was not my business. He called me a quixotic young fool among other things, and I may have called him a robber. I'm not sure. Anyway, I quit.

"Now, Keith's kept me off from the properties as soon as they have been fairly started and I have been only consulting engineer for the Molly.

I've been busy on preliminary work. The engineer he brought from New York has been in actual charge. That was all right. I'm comparatively a kid. But I know what is going on generally in Casey Town. There have been no more strikes, for one thing; the discoveries have all been in the one layer and they are gradually working out.

"Keith would rather develop a good property than a bad one. He has established himself, has a future to look to. He carries his investing clients from one proposition to another. He never has to risk his own money and he has been lucky. He has made money--lots of it. Now then, why does he start wildcatting?"

"Must need money," suggested Sandy.

"That's my idea. I believe he's been stung somewhere. I know he's been fooling with oil stocks. His mail's full of it. And I believe he's been bitten by the other fellow's game instead of sticking to his own."

"It's been done befo'."

"But that isn't all." Westlake brought down his right fist into the palm of his left hand for emphasis. "This comes from information I can rely on, from logical deductions of my own, from actual observation of conditions. Yesterday they closed up the stopes in the Molly. Boarded 'em over. This was done without consulting me. The superintendent talked some rot about not wis.h.i.+ng over-production and pus.h.i.+ng development. I heard of it after I had walked out of Keith's office, resigned, or fired. You can't issue an order like that without miners talking. I know most of them.

"Now then--there's no gold left back of the boarding in those stopes--practically none! The Molly is played out, picked like a walnut of its meat! If they do develop down to the second porphyry level they won't find anything to pay for the work. They have taken all the sylvanite out of your mine and _Keith is trying to cover up that fact_."

Westlake stopped and eyed them. They took it differently. Mormon softly whistled. Sam slid out his harmonica, cuddled in beneath his mustache and played a little of the _Cowboy's Lament_. Sandy's eyes closed slightly. They glittered like gray metal in the moonlight.

"Keith can't help the mine peterin' out," he said. "Jest why is he hidin' it? So's he can sell new shares an' keep the price up of the old ones. So's he can unload?"

"Plain enough. Now the Molly Mine stock isn't on the market. It is all owned, as I understand, by Miss Casey and you three holding the controlling interest, Keith the rest. It's been paying dividends from the start. Keith will try to unload."

"He'll have to do it on the quiet or it 'ud have the same effect as if the news came out about the mine," said Sandy.

"True. He may try to sell it to you."

"Not likely. He doesn't expect us to have the money. We haven't. I take it he can't dump 'em in a hurry. That's why he's boardin' the stopes. If he don't trail over here in a day or so I'll shack over to Casey Town fo' a li'l' chat. I'd admire to go over the mine. Mebbe we'll all go.

Might even call a directors' meetin'. Quien sabe? Much obliged to you, Westlake."

Westlake nodded. He understood that quiet drawl of Sandy's. If the li'l'

chat came off, Keith would not enjoy himself, he fancied.

"The question is what move to make an' when to make it. If Molly is one thing she is game. We've got a good deal out of the mine an' it's all come so far from the sale of gold to the mint, I take it. We don't dabble in stocks. We're ahead. If the mine's gone bu'st she's done nicely by us, at that."

Back of Sandy's talk thoughts formed in his brain that held a good deal of comfort. Molly was no longer an heiress, if Westlake's news was true.

And he did not doubt it. Molly would not have to go back East. Her relations with the Keiths would be broken. She had not spent all her share of the dividends. Keith held some portion of this. Just how much Sandy did not know. He had not held Keith to strict accountings, he had trusted him to bank the funds. That Molly had a banking-account, he knew. It might mean her staying west. The princ.i.p.al used on the Three Star was intact and would be turned over to her, if they could make her accept it, but it began to look as if Molly might remain, all things considered.

"I figger you're right about Keith trailin' over here to see if you've showed," Sandy went on. "That's the way I'd play him. As you say, he's got to git rid of his shares quietly an' he can't do it in a rush. I don't want to tell Molly she's bu'sted until we're plumb certain. An'

Keith's got money of hers. We want to git that out of the pot befo' we break with Keith. He'll give us an openin' fo' a general understandin', I reckon. If he don't show inside of a couple of days I'll take a pasear over to Casey Town an' have a li'l' chat with him.

"Young Keith sabe his father's play?" asked Sandy.

"No." Westlake spoke decidedly. "He's not interested in mining. He's on the trip because his father holds the purse strings. He's a good deal of a cub, at present. I mean he don't show much inclination to use his brains. He's having a good time on easy money. He doesn't know the difference between an adit and an air-drill. Doesn't want to. Makes a show of interest, naturally, to stand in with his old man, but he puts in a good deal of time scooting round the hills in that big car of theirs, or going hunting. I heard he was trying to buck a poker game, but Keith's secretary heard that too and I imagine attended to it. It was not my province. He's a likable kid in many ways but he's just a kid."

"'Tw'udn't be fair to hold anythin' ag'in' him, 'count of his breedin',"

said Sandy, "but colts that ain't bred right bear watchin'. Men an'

hawsses, there's a sight of difference between thoroughbred an' _well_ bred. I've known a heap of folks mighty well bred who didn't have much pedigree. So long's the blood's pure, names don't amount to shucks. Now tell us some about that South American berth of yours, Westlake."

Westlake rather marveled at the ease with which Sandy and his chums dismissed a matter that meant a material loss of money to them, but he had seen the light in Sandy's eyes and he knew his capacity for action when the moment arrived. The four sat up late, talking of mining in various ways and places.

"This Westlake hombre'll go a long ways," summed up Sam to Sandy after Westlake had turned in and Mormon had yawned himself off to bed. "He sure knows a heap, he don't brag, he's on the square an' he ain't afraid of work."

"A good deal of a he-man," a.s.sented Sandy. "Stands up on his hind laigs.

He didn't come out of the same mold as Keith. Sam, you ain't a potenshul millionaire any longer, just plain ranchman. You can go to sleep 'thout worryin' how yo're goin' to spend yore dividends."