Rimrock Trail Part 29

It was Plimsoll's way--the professional gambler's way--to play his cards until he knew himself beaten. He had been hoping for the arrival of this man. He represented capital, the development of the camp into a mining town, the movement of money, the boom of quick sales. With his backing--once the camp understood what it meant to all of them--he might turn the tables on Sandy Bourke. The protection of Capital was powerful.

He came out licking his lips nervously, with a swift survey that took in the setting of the stage prepared for his entrance. His eyes, shifting from the big machine, as if drawn by something beyond his will, focused on the figure of Sandy, easy but sinister in its capacity to avoid all melodrama. Half-way between door and car he halted.

"Plimsoll?" said the stranger. "I am Keith."

The light was perceptibly changing. Faces of men came out of the shadows, pale but visible. The lights of the machine changed from yellow to pale lemon, the flares outside the cabins, the illumination of the windows altered. High up, a tiny fleck of cloud caught the fire of the as yet unseen sun, rolling on to dawn behind the range. Things seemed flat, lacking full definition, lacking shadow. In the east the sky showed gray behind the dark purple crests between which mists were trailing. Men shivered, half from cold, half from tension and lack of sleep.

"Plimsoll," said Sandy. "That peak oveh on Sawtooth Range is goin' to catch the light first. I'll call it sun-up when the sun looks oveh the mesa."

Plimsoll bared his teeth in a fox-grin. Sandy stood with his hands by his sides, covering him with his eyes. Plimsoll looked at the hands that he knew could move swifter than he could follow, he looked at the car with Keith gazing from him to Sandy, he sensed the waiting strain of all the men, waiting to see Sandy shoot--if he did not go, to see him crumple up in the dust, and--he looked at the peak on Sawtooth and his face grayed as the granite suddenly flushed with rose. His will melted, he turned and went inside his cabin. No one followed him, there was no one inside to greet him. His heart was filled with helpless rage, centered against Sandy Bourke. He knew the camp was against him, considering him outbluffed or outmatched. His horse, ready saddled, had been at the door since midnight. He mounted, dug spurs into the beast's flanks and went galloping madly up the slope that rose from the street gulch leading down to the main gulch of Flivver Creek. He was shortcutting for the mesa road, hate in his heart, his blood, his brain; poisoning hate that turned all his secretions to gall. His plans for wealth had been blocked by a man he dared not face. Before Sandy Bourke his spirit flinched as a leaf shrinks and curls from flame. The forced acknowledgment of it was an acid aggravation. He raked his horse's flanks with his rowels and the spirited brute, pick of all Plimsoll's horse herd, tore up the hillside to suit the mad humor of his master, who was permeated with the venom of a man who knows his deeds at once evil and futile, a venom that was bound to spread until the infection mastered him, body and mind and soul, steeped them in a devil's brew that permitted of no other thought but what was dominated by the mad desire to get even.

Some one caught sight of the galloping horse and rider lunging along in a cloud of dust that showed golden as the sun rose and looked over the mesa. He raised a shout that was joined in by the rest, that reached the flying Plimsoll as the view-halloo reaches the fox making for its earth.

CHAPTER XV

CASEY TOWN

The man named Keith called to Sandy Bourke who, for the moment, still stood alone, now rolling a cigarette. He was the only man in the close vicinity of the car and he turned at the sound of Keith's voice.

"You-all talkin' to me?" he inquired mildly.

"I would like to know," said Keith in a manner which he appeared struggling to invest with humor, "exactly what is the idea of this theatrical, moving-picture episode?"

Sandy smiled back at him.

"Look like film stuff, to you?" he asked in his drawl. "Surely is movin'

pictures to Plimsoll, though it's h.e.l.l on the hawss. You can let it go at that, if you like. Li'l' western drama ent.i.tled _To Be Shot at Sunrise_."

The crowd began to gather closer, curious to find out the reason for the swift advent of the car, the desire to see Plimsoll.

"You were ready to shoot at Plimsoll?"

"I was ready. I didn't figger there was goin' to be much shootin'."

"It looks to me as if you've driven the man out of camp and, as I've come all the way from New York to do business with him, driven the last two hundred miles in this car, I'd be obliged if you would tell me just what was the matter, Mr.----?"

"Bourke. Sandy Bourke."

The stranger had managed to m.u.f.fle down his chagrin and resentment at the outcome of his trip. Of necessity he was a judge of men and it did not take him long to place Sandy. Keith was an adept at adapting himself to his environment.

"Sorry to have upset things fo' you," went on Sandy, "but this was a personal matteh between myse'f an' Plimsoll that had to be settled p.r.o.nto an' permanent. I don't reckon how you've lost a heap, said Plimsoll bein' a crook."

"My name's Keith, Wilson Keith," said the other. "I don't know that that means much to you as I judge you generally belong to the range rather than the mining camp, but there may be a few in the crowd who know me. I am a mining promoter. Plimsoll had agreed to sell me his interest in certain claims which showed well in a.s.say reports. They alone were insufficient to interest me. When he wired me the news of the general strike, the prospect of development opened and I came on. You seem to have blocked the deal. However, I suppose Plimsoll can be located later.

Have you any idea where he might be found?"

"It w'udn't do you one mite of good," said Sandy. "Plimsoll didn't own those claims. Didn't have an interest in 'em. Tried to jump 'em, an'

did the jumpin' himse'f. I've got an idea you might have been through here some time back. I heard some eastern folk had been samplin' ore an'

I saw some signs up on the Casey claims. Those are the claims Plimsoll tried to sell you, I reckon, for cash, figgerin' on the deal goin'

through quick. He 'lowed he'd grubstaked Casey, which was a plumb lie.

Casey had a const.i.tutional objection about bein' grubstaked, an' he had none too much use fo' Plimsoll. Plimsoll's got nothin' to prove his end.

From now on he won't try to. The claims belong to Molly Casey, the same bein' my legal ward."

"Ah!" Wilson Keith's eyes grew keen and cold. "Have you any interest in them yourself, Mr. Bourke?"

"Me an' my two partners of the Three Star Ranch own one-half interest, equal with Molly," said Sandy easily. His eyes matched those of the promoter and held them for a second or two.

The thought pa.s.sed through Keith's mind that Sandy's interest, and that of his partners, might have been obtained from the girl under false pretenses, but he was very far from a fool and, among the things he saw in Sandy's eyes, it was clearly written that here was a man who was both absolutely fearless and absolutely honest. He had not seen many such.

"I'll be glad to talk with you later," he said. "Just now I'm ravenous.

Any place to eat? And does the camp get up early or just go to bed late?"

The remark raised a laugh in the crowd, now milling good-naturedly about the machine.

"Want to buy any more claims?" asked a voice.

"I might. I've looked over the ground once, I may as well admit, and I've had an expert report upon it. I'd like to have a talk with all of you after I've had some coffee. This is a camp where it will take a great deal of money, of labor and of time to develop it, whether you try to drill and blast yourselves, or pool your interests and install machinery. Did you say which was the best place to eat, Mr. Bourke?"

Sandy recommended Simpson's and pointed it out. Keith, the man with him, his secretary, and the chauffeur, got out and walked stiff-legged to their coffee. The crowd once more had sleep discounted by excitement.

Keith had shrewdly said just enough. The seed that he had planted in the suggestion that they pool interests fell in such rich ground that it began sprouting immediately.

Sandy introduced Sam as his partner, Westlake as a mining engineer and a.s.sayer. Keith gave Westlake a shrewd appraising glance, and a nod.

"I'm too sleepy myse'f to talk business," said Sandy. "My two pardners are in the same boat. So, if you-all want to look oveh the camp ag'in, Mr. Keith, an' talk business with any one you find awake an' willin', I'll prob'bly see you befo' nightfall. You know where the claims are."

Keith stood for a moment in the door of Simpson's, looking after Sandy.

"A fairly slick article, the man with the two guns, Blake," he said to his secretary. "But he's straight."

"And mighty hard to bend," added Blake with a yawn.

The chauffeur ate apart, devouring enormous quant.i.ties of food with as much emotion as a hopper taking in grain. Keith talked matters over with Blake, not because he valued his secretary's opinion, able as he was in his appointed duties, but because it helped Keith to clarify conditions in his own mind.

"There were only a few old-timers in the crowd, Blake," he said. "The rest of them will want to be going back to wherever and whatever they came from as soon as they find this is not a placer proposition. A heap of people heard of a gold rush and think it's always a Tom Tiddler's Ground, like washing out the rich sands of Nome. They'll be glad to sell and take shares for cash."

"Ought to change the name of the camp," suggested Blake. "Dynamite is known as an exploded prospect."

"Thought of that," said Keith. "This is d.a.m.ned good coffee. I'll have another cup.... How about Casey Town, after the original discoverer who always believed in the place, but lacked the money for development and wouldn't take in a partner? Picturesque and good stuff for the prospectuses. You might send off some stuff about that, Blake, work in this Sandy Bourke and Plimsoll affair and find out what this all-night racket was about. Good, lively publicity stuff we can use again later on. Romance of Casey's daughter. Wonder where she is?"

He lapsed into silence, swallowing his third cup of coffee in gulps.

Blake, who admired his employer's successes, whatever he thought of his methods, did not interrupt him. Keith was planning a campaign, figuring out the best bait for gulls.

Sandy and his companions found Mormon asleep on the Bailey claims.

Miranda brewed coffee, and they told her the news of Plimsoll and the arrival of Keith.