Dane Coolidge

“ Ain't a man got a right, if he's crowded too far, to stand up and fight for his own? Would you think any better of me if I'd quit in the pinch and let McBain get away with my mine? Wasn't he just a plain robber, only without the nerve, hiring gun-fighters to do the rough work? Why, Mary, I feel proud, every time I think about it, that I went there and did what I did. I feel like a man that has done a great duty and I can't stand it to have you disapprove. When I killed McBain I served notice on everybody that no man can steal from me, not even if he hides behind the law. ”

“ As for the men of the hotel, the susceptible young mining men who passed to and fro from Gunsight, they found her pleasant, but not quite what they had expected—not quite what Dame Rumor had painted her. They watched her from the distance, for she was undeniably goodlooking—and so did the women upstairs. They watched, and they listened, which was not the least of the reasons why Mary Fortune laid her ear-'phone aside. No person can enjoy the intimacies of life when they are shouted, ill-advisedly, to the world. ”

“ And when he returned, after ignoring her letters and allowing his mining claim to lapse, and resumed his fault-finding complaints she had put him back in his place.
But that was just it, the outburst had relieved her; she had lost her cherished hate. In the quiet of her room she remembered how he looked, so beaten and yet so bold. She remembered the blow that her words had given him when he had learned that his stock was doomed; and that greater blow when he saw even his equity placed in jeopardy by the jumping of the Old Juan. ”

“ So the month dragged by until at last they sat together in the mahogany-furnished Directors' room. Rimrock sat at the head of the polished table with Mary Fortune near by, and Stoddard and Buckbee opposite. As the friend of all parties—and the retiring Director—Buckbee had come in the interest of peace; or so he claimed, but how peace would profit him was a question hard to decide. It might seem, in fact, that war would serve better; for brokers are the sharks in the ocean of finance and feed and fatten where the battle is fiercest. ”

“ You don't like Mr. Stoddard. Very well, he doesn't like you. He thinks you're flighty and extravagant. But is that any reason why we shouldn't be friends—or why my stock isn't perfectly good?"
"Don't you think it!" answered Rimrock. "Any time you want to sell it——"
"A-ah! At it again!" she chided laughingly. "How like fighting animals men are. If I'd toss that stock, like a bit of raw meat, in the midst of you copper-mad men! But I won't, never fear. In the fight that would follow I might lose some highly valued friend." ”

“ Hardesty! Who was Mrs. Hardesty? And why had she gone to Gunsight and fetched him back to New York? Was it because he was crazy that he had the idea that she was an agent, somehow, of Stoddard? That two thousand shares of Tecolote stock that she had assured him Stoddard had sold her, wasn't it part of their scheme to lure him away and break up his friendship with Mary? Because if Mrs. Hardesty had it she had never produced it, and there was no record of the transfer on the books. Rimrock brought down his fist and swore a great oath never to see the woman again. ”

“ I like you, Rimrock, I'm afraid I can't help it, but I doubt if we can even be friends."
"Aw, now listen!" he pleaded. "It was you drove me to drink. A man can get over those things. But not when he's put in the wrong in everything—he's got to win, sometimes."
"Yes, but, Rimrock, there has never been a time when you couldn't have had everything you wanted—if you wouldn't always be fighting for it. But when you distrust me and go against me and say that I've sold you out, how can a woman do anything but fight you back? ”

“ As she waited for his letter from day to day, Mary Fortune thought incessantly of Rimrock. She went out to the mine and gazed at the great workings where men appeared no larger than ants. She watched the ore being scooped up with steam shovels and dropped load by load into cars; she saw it crushed and pulverized and washed and the concentrates dumped into more cars; and then the endless chain of copper going out and the trainloads of supplies coming in. It was his, if he would come to it; every man would obey him ”

“ Yet how difficult it is to retain all our friends, though we come with gifts in both hands! Rimrock rewarded Hassayamp and L. W., and Woo Chong, and every man who had done him a kind act. If money can cement friendships he had won over the whole town, but with Mary Fortune he had failed. On that first triumphant night when, after their bout with Stoddard, they realized the true value of their mine; in the dim light of the balcony and speaking secretly into her ear, he had won, for one instant, a kiss. ”

“ Then Rimrock caught her glance—it was flashing across the foyer to the stream on the other side. He followed it instinctively and there, tripping gracefully down the stairway as he had seen her once before at Gunsight, was Mary Fortune, his girl!
Yes, his girl! Rimrock knew it instantly, the girl he had always loved. The One Woman he could love forever if fate would but give him the chance. He started forward, but a hand restrained him; it was Mrs. Hardesty at his side. ”

“ The dusty team of mules passed down the street, dragging their double-trees reluctantly, and took their cursing meekly as they made the turn at the tracks. A switch engine bumped along the sidings, snaking ore-cars down to the bins and bunting them up to the chutes, but except for its bangings and clamor the town was still. An aged Mexican, armed with a long bunch of willow brush, swept idly at the sprinkled street and Old Hassayamp Hicks, the proprietor of the Alamo Saloon, leaned back in his rawhide chair and watched him with good-natured contempt. ”

“ There is one street in Gunsight, running grandly down to the station; but the rest is mostly vacant lots and scattered adobe houses, creeping out into the infinitude of the desert. At noon, when he had come to town, the street was deserted, but now it was coming to life. Wild-eyed Mexican boys, mounted on bare-backed ponies, came galloping up from the corrals; freight wagons drifted past, hauling supplies to distant mining camps; and at last, as he stood there thinking, the women began to come out of the hotel. ”

“ Stoddard, that the Old Juan is a perfectly good claim?"
"I did!" defended Rimrock. "I told Jepson so yesterday. I used those very same words!"
"Yes, but with another implication. You let it be understood that the reason it was good was that you were there, with your gun!"
"Stop right there!" commanded Rimrock. "That's the last, ultimate reason that holds in a court of law! The code is nothing, the Federal law is nothing, even treaties are nothing! The big thing that counts is—possession. Until that claim is recorded it's the only reason. The man that holds the ground, owns it. ”

“ For a woman of society, compelled by her widowhood to manage her own affairs, it was wonderful to Rimrock how much she knew of the intricacies of the stock market and of the Exchange. There was not a financier or a broker of note that she did not know by name, and the complex ways by which they achieved their ends were an open book to her. Even Whitney H. Stoddard was known to her personally—the shrewdest intriguer of them all—and yet he, so she said, had a human side to him and let her in on occasional deals. ”

“ Hardesty appeared frequently in the Waldorf lobby, and when Rimrock came in with any of his friends he was expected to introduce them. And Rimrock's friends in that swarming hotel were as numerous as they were in Gunsight. He expected no less, wherever he went, than the friendship of every man; and if any held back, for any reason, he marked him as quickly for an enemy. He was as open-hearted and free in those marble corridors and in the velvet-hung club and cafe as the old Rimrock had been on the streets of Gunsight when he spoke to every Mexican. ”

“ The man! There is always a man, some man, for every woman who dreams. Rimrock Jones had come once and gone as quickly, but his absence was rainbowed with romance. He was out on the desert, far away to the south, sinking shafts on his claims—their claims. He had discovered a fortune, but, strong as he was, he had had to accept help from her. He would succeed, this fierce, ungovernable desert-man; he would win the world's confidence as he had won her faith by his strength and the bold look in his eyes. ”

“ Jepson," began Rimrock, speaking through his teeth, "there's no one that questions my claim. But if any man does—I don't care who he is—he's welcome to try and jump it. All he'll have to do is whip me."
He was winking angrily and Jepson, after a silence, cast an appealing glance at Mary Fortune.
"You've got a wonderful property here," he observed, speaking generally, "the prospects are very bright. There's only one thing that can mar its success, and that is litigation!" ”

“ He stopped for up from the mouth of the Old Juan shaft came the head of Andrew McBain.
"Ah, hiding in a hole," spoke up Rimrock sneeringly, as McBain opened his mouth to talk. "I'd like to work for a man like you. Say, boys, take on with me—I'll double your money; and what's more I'll stand up for my rights!" He looked around at the line of gun-fighters, but their set lips did not answer his smile. Only in their eyes, those subtle mirrors of the mind, did he read the passing reflex of their scorn. "You're scared, you coward," went on Rimrock scathingly as McBain looked warily about. ”

“ Not even the dealer or the hawk-eyed lookout was more intently absorbed in the game. He knew every card that had been played and he bet where the odds were best. Every so often a long, yellow hand reached past him and laid a bet by his stake. It was the hand of a Chinaman, those most passionate of faro players, and at such times, seeing it follow his luck, the face of Rimrock lightened up with the semblance of a smile. He called the last turn and they paused for the drinks, while the dealer mopped his brow. ”

“ She broke down completely and buried her face in her arms while Rimrock stood staring like a fool. He was stunned, astounded; put beyond the power to listen, or reason, or think. All he knew was that some time, when he was away and while no one was there to befriend, Ike Bray his enemy had climbed up the butte and jumped the Old Juan claim. And all the time he was dallying in New York and playing his puny string at Navajoa the Old Juan claim and the mighty Tecolote had been left unguarded until they were jumped. ”

“ For a man who was worth fifty million dollars and could claim a whole town for his friends Rimrock put in a most miserable night as he dwelt on this blow to his hopes. He was like a man checkmated at chess—every way he turned he was sure to lose if he moved. For the chance of winning a hypothetical two thousand shares, which Stoddard was supposed to have sold to Mrs. Hardesty, he had thrown away and lost forever his control over Mary Fortune's stock. ”

“ If he could hold the Old Juan claim he could cloud the title to all the rich ground on both sides; and at the end of litigation, if he won his suit, all the improvements that might be built below would be of value only to him. Always providing he won; for his game was desperate and he knew that Rimrock would fight.
He had flung down the challenge and, knowing well how it would end, he had had his gunmen barricade the trail. They were picked-up men of that peculiar class found in every Western town, the men who live by their nerve. ”

“ He poured it out hurriedly and reached blindly to catch her, but she rose up and slipped way.
"No, Rimrock," she said as she gazed back at him from a distance, "you want too much—all at once. To love and to marry are serious things, they make or mar a woman's whole life. I didn't come out here with the intention of marrying and I have no such intention yet. And to win a woman's love—may I tell you something? It can never be done by violence. You may take that big pistol and win a mountain of copper that is worth two hundred million dollars, but love doesn't come that way. ”

“ Do you believe in love?" she went on abruptly as Rimrock showed signs of pique. "I just wanted to know. You great, big Western men seem more fitted, somehow, for the part of copper kings. But tell me honestly, I feel so trifling to-night, do you believe in the great love for one woman? Or do you hold with these drawing-room philosophers that man is by nature polygamous? Never mind my feelings—just tell me."
She coiled up lazily in her soft plush great-chair and regarded him with languid eyes, and Rimrock never suspected that the words he had spoken would go straight to Stoddard that night. ”

“ Hardesty laughed—it was soft, woman's laughter as if she enjoyed this joke on mere man—and even when Rimrock explained the dangerous side of his predicament she refused to take it seriously.
"Ah, you're all alike," she said sighing comfortably, "I've never known it to fail. It's always the woman who trusts through everything, and the man who disbelieves. ”

“ He thrust out his jaw and glared up the street where L. W. Lockhart, the local banker, came stumping down the sidewalk. L. W. was tall and rangy, with a bulldog jaw clamped down on a black cigar, and an air of absolute detachment from his surroundings.
"Yes, I mean you!" shouted Rimrock insultingly as L. W. went grimly past. "You claim to be a white man, and then stand in with that lawyer to beat me out of my mine. I made you, you old nickel-pincher, and now you go by me and don't even say: 'Have a drink!'"
"You're drunk!" ”

“ Even Rimrock was surprised, but he leaned back easily and gave her a swift, approving smile. She was with him, that was enough; let the stock gamblers rage. He had won in the very first bout.
"But my dear Miss Fortune," began Stoddard, still smiling, "do you realize what you have done? You have rejected a profit, at the very least, of one or two million dollars."
"That may be," she said, "but I prefer not to take it unless we give something in return."
"But we do!" broke in Buckbee, "that stock is legitimate. The people that buy in will get rich." ”

“ Up that very same path the year before Rimrock Jones had rushed on to defend his claim. He had been a man then, or at least a fighting animal; but now he was a soft, pampered brute. He left his fighting to be done by a woman while he spent his money like a fool. The fierce anger from that thought gave courage to her heart and her resentment spurred her on. She toiled on and rested and gazed despairingly at the high crags, but still she kept her face to the heights. As midnight approached and the trail had no ending she stopped and gazed doubtfully back, and then she went hurrying on. ”

“ He stood in the rotunda of the Hotel Tecolote and gazed admiringly at the striped marble pillars that he had ordered at great expense, and his answer was always the same.
"Why, sure not! I knowed that jury wouldn't convict. I picked them myself by the look in their eye, and every man had to be ten years in the Territory. A fine bunch of men—every one of 'em square—they can have anything I've got. That's me! You know Rimrock! He never forgets his friends! And he don't forget his enemies, either!" ”