Rimrock Trail, Joseph Allan Dunn [miss read books TXT] 📗

said. "I wish she'd marry Mormon. But Kate Nicholson is a far better cook than she is. Only she won't do anything for fear of hurting Miranda's feelings."

Yet the governess did cook on occasion, trout that they caught in the mountain streams, and camp biscuits and fragrant coffee when they made excursion, so deft a presiding genius of the camp-fire that Sam declared she belonged to Sageland.

"I love it," she answered, sleeves tucked to the elbow, stooping over the fire, her face full of color, tucking a vagrant wisp of hair into place.

"Not much like the East, is it, Molly?" Sandy would ask.

"Not a bit. Lots better."

"You must miss a lot."

"What, for instance, Sandy?"

"Real music, for one thing. Concerts, theaters. Your sports. Tennis and golf. The people you met at the Keiths'. Clothes, pritty dresses, dancin'."

"I love dancing," she said. "But not always the way they dance. Tennis and golf are poky compared to riding Blaze. I like pretty things, but I'm not crazy about clothes, Sandy. And lots of them are, back there. Grown-up women as well as the girls I knew. And they are never satisfied, Sandy. It isn't real there. Nobody seems to know each other. Anybody could drop out and not be missed. It is all a rush. It is good to be back—good."

She stopped talking, gazing into the fire. The nights at Three Star were crisp. It was as if cold was jealous of the land that the sun wooed so ardently and rushed upon it the moment the latter sank behind the hills. Sandy looked at her hungrily, wishing she would elect to sit there always, mistress of the hearth and of him.

"Young Keith'll be over soon, I reckon," he said presently. "He said he'd come. Like him, Molly?"

It was not jealousy prompted the suggestion, but Sandy had more than once contrasted himself with the youngster and his easy manners, his undeniably good looks, his youth, wondering how close he was to Molly's moods and ideals, making him typical of the East as against the West.

"He's a nice boy," she said. "He has always had things his own way. He's partly spoiled, I'm afraid. He'd have been a lot nicer if he had been brought up on a ranch. I've told him so."

"Why?"

"Life's quieter out here, Sandy. It's bigger somehow. Donald only pleases himself. He—they don't seem to have real families out East, Sandy. I don't quite mean that, but as I have seen them. The Keiths. They are kind but they don't belong just to each other. They have their own ways and none of them do anything together. He's been nice to me—Donald. So have Mr. and Mrs. Keith."

Sandy had no effort imagining Donald being nice to Molly, contrasted with the other girls who just amused themselves.

"I'd cut a pore figger at tennis, I reckon," he said. "Or golf."

"So would Donald breaking a bronco," she laughed. "He's keen to ride one, to see a round-up. Why, Sandy, they think life is wonderful out here. And it is."

He wondered how much of her enthusiasm was lasting, how much came of the affectionate gratitude she showed them constantly, how much she thought of the swifter life she was going back to presently at the end of the month—with one week gone out of the four. He wrestled with the temptation to ask her not to go back, or to have Miss Nicholson remain on the ranch to complete the education that was steadily widening—as he saw it—the gap between them.

Sandy was not ignorant. His speech was mostly dialect, born of environment. He wrote correctly enough, aided by the dictionary he had acquired. He had business capacity, executive ability, strong manhood. He read increasingly, his mind was plastic. But these things he belittled. And he was her guardian. Though he knew he might win her promise to stay easily enough, he did not wish to exercise his authority. It might be misunderstood, even by Molly herself, later. He could not force his hand in this vital matter, as he handled other things. And yet....

Sam had stopped playing, Kate Nicholson was weaving chords in music unknown to those who listened, save that it seemed to speak some common language that had been forgotten since childhood. The fire shifted, there was silence in the big room. Mormon sat shading his face, Miranda Bailey beside him, her knitting idle. Sam lounged in a shady corner near the harmonium. Grit lay asleep. It was infinitely peaceful.

There was the sound of a motor outside, the honk of a horn. The door opened and a man came in, gazing uncertainly about him in the half-light—Westlake.

"This is the Three Star, isn't it?" he asked, evidently puzzled at the group.

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 embarrassment, 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 embarrass 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-fashion. 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