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Read Ebook: The Hemlock Avenue Mystery by Long Lily A Lily Augusta Grunwald Charles Illustrator
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Ebook has 1530 lines and 61292 words, and 31 pages
SHADOW MOUNTAIN
THE LAST OF TEN THOUSAND
Under the rim of Shadow Mountain, embraced like a pearl of great price by the curve of Bonanza Point and the mined-out slope of Gold Hill, the deserted city of Keno lay brooding and silent in the sun. A dry, gusty wind, swooping down through the northern pass, slammed the great iron fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a cloud of sand and dirt and, whirling it down past empty stores and assay offices, deposited it in the doorways of gambling houses and dance halls, long since abandoned to the rats. An old man, pottering about among the ruins, gathered up some broken boards and hobbled off; and once more Keno, the greatest gold camp the West has ever seen, sank back to silence and dreams.
A round of shots wakened the echoes of Shadow Mountain; a lonely miner came down the trail from Gold Hill, where in the old days the Paymaster had turned out its million a month; and then, far out across the floor of the desert on the road that led in from the railroad, there appeared an arrow-point of dust. It grew to a racing streak of white, the distant purring of the motor gave way to a deep-voiced thunder and as the powerful car glided swiftly up the street the doors of old houses opened unexpectedly and the last of ten thousand looked out.
There were old men and cripples, left stranded by the exodus; and prospectors who had moved into the vacant houses along with the other desert rats; but out on the gallery of the old Huff mansion--where the creepers still clung to the lattice--there was a flutter of white and a girl came out with a kitten in her arms. In the days of gold--when ten thousand men, the choice spirits of two hemispheres, had tramped down this same deserted street--the house of Colonel Huff, the discoverer of the Paymaster, had been the social center of Keno. And so it was still, for the Widow Huff remained; but across the front of the hospitable gallery where the Colonel had entertained the town, a cheap cloth sign announced meals fifty cents and Virginia, his daughter, was the waiter. She stood by the sign, still high-headed and patrician, and when the driver of the car saw her he came to a sudden stop. He was long and gaunt, with deep lines around his mouth from bucking the wind and dust and after a moment's hesitation he threw on his brake and leapt out.
"Did you want something?" she asked and, glancing warily about, he nodded and came up the steps.
"Yes," he said, still eying her doubtfully, "what's the chance for something to eat?"
"Why, good," she answered with a suspicion of a smile. "Or--well, come in; I'll speak to mother."
She showed him into the spacious dining room, where the Colonel had once presided in state, and hurried into the kitchen. The young man gazed after her, looked swiftly about the room and backed away towards the door; then his strong jaw closed down, he smiled grimly to himself and sat down unbidden at a table. The table was mahogany and, in a case against the wall, there was a scant display of cut glass; but the linen was worn thin and the expensive velvet carpet had been ruined by hob-nailed boots. Heavy workingmen's dishes lay on the tables, the plating was worn from the knives, and the last echoing ghost of vanished gentility was dispelled by a voice from the kitchen. It was the Widow Huff, once the first lady of Keno, but now a boarding-house cook.
There was a murmur of low-voiced protest as Virginia pleaded his cause and then, as the Widow burst out anew, the young man pushed back his chair. His blue eyes, half hidden beneath bulging brows, turned a steely, fighting gray, his wind-blown hair fairly bristled; and as he listened to the last of the Widow's remarks his lower lip was thrust up scornfully.
"You danged old heifer," he muttered and then the kitchen door flew open. The baleful look which he had intended for the Widow was surprised on his face by Virginia and after a startled moment she closed the door behind her.
"Why--Wiley Holman!" she cried accusingly and a challenge leapt into his eyes.
"Well?" he demanded and gazed at her sullenly as she scanned him from head to foot.
"I knew it," she burst out. "I'd know that stubborn look anywhere! You double up your lip like your father. Honest John!" she added sarcastically and brushed some crumbs from the table.
"Yes--Honest John!" he retorted. "And you don't need to say it like that, either. He's my father--I know him--and I'll tell you right now he never cheated a man in his life."
"Well, he did!" she flared back, her eyes dark with anger, "and I'll bet--I'll bet if my father was here he'd--he'd prove it to your face!"
She ended in a sob and as he saw the tears starting the son of Honest John relented.
"Aw, Virginia," he pleaded, "what's the use of always fighting? He's gone now, so let's be friends. I was just going by when I saw you on the gallery, and I thought--well, let's you and I be friends."
"What? After old Honest John robbed Papa of the Paymaster, and then hounded him to his death on the desert?"
"Well, what?" he demanded, truculently.
"She'll fill you full of buckshot."
"Pah!" he scoffed and snapped his fingers in the air, after which he lapsed into silence.
"Well, she will," she asserted, after waiting for him to speak, but Wiley only grunted.
"Wait till I get that dinner," he said at last and slumped down into a chair. He muttered to himself, gazing dubiously towards the kitchen, and turned impatiently to look at some specimens in a case against the wall. They were the usual chunks of high-grade gold ore, but he examined one piece with great care.
"Where'd you get this?" he asked, holding up a piece of white rock, and she sighed and brushed away her tears.
"Over on the dump," she answered wearily. "That's all Paymaster ore. Don't you think you'd better go?"
"Never ran away yet," he answered briefly and balanced the rock in his hand. "Pretty heavy," he observed, "I'll bet it would assay. Have you got very much on the dump?"
"Oh, it is, eh?" he rejoined and gazed at her hectoringly. "You seem to know a whole lot about mineral."
"Yes, I do," she boasted. "Death Valley Charley teaches me. I've learned how to pan, and everything. But that rock there--that's the barren quartz that the Paymaster ran into when the values went out of the ore. Old Charley knows all about it."
"Yes, they all do," he observed and as his lip went up her eyes dilated suddenly in a panic.
"Oh, you went to that school--I forgot all about it--where they study about the mines! Are you in the mining business now?"
"Why, yes," he acknowledged, "but that doesn't make much difference. I find I can learn something from most everybody."
She hesitated politely and as he reached for another specimen she noticed a ring on his finger. It was of massive gold and, set in clutching claws, there were three stupendous diamonds. Not imitation stones nor small, off-colored diamonds, but brilliants of the very first water, clear as dew, yet holding in their hearts the faintest suggestion of blue.
"Oh!" she gasped, and as he did not seem to notice, she drew her skirts away with a flourish. "I'm surprised," she mocked, "that you condescend to speak to us--of course you own your own mines!"
"Nope," he replied, shrugging his shoulders at her sarcasm, "I'm nothing but a prospector, yet. And you don't need to be so surprised."
"He did not!"
"Well, he did," she declared, "and you can keep your old ring! It won't bring back my father--now!"
"No, it won't," he agreed, "but while we're about it I just want to tell you something. My father went broke, buying back Paymaster stock from friends he'd advised to go in--and he's got the stock to prove it--and when he heard that the Colonel was dead he decided to buy in your mother's. He mortgaged his cows to raise the money for her and then that old terror--I don't care if she is your mother--she slapped him in the face by refusing it. Well, he didn't like to say anything, but you can tell her from me she don't have to cook unless she wants to! She can sell--or buy--a hundred thousand shares of Paymaster any day she says the word; and if that isn't honest I don't know what is! I ask you, now; isn't that fair?"
"What, at ten cents a share? When it used to sell for forty dollars! He's just trying to get control of the mine. And as for offering to buy or sell, that's perfectly ludicrous, because he knows we haven't any money!"
He paused at a sudden slam from the kitchen, and Virginia's eyes grew big; but as he rose to face the Widow Huff he slipped the white rock into his pocket.
THE SHOTGUN WIDOW
The Widow Huff was burdened with a tray and her eye sought wildly for Virginia but when she glimpsed Wiley moving swiftly towards the door she set down his dinner with a bang. The disrespectful epithet which he had applied to her had been lost in the clatter of plates, but the moment the Widow came into the room she sensed the hair-trigger atmosphere.
"Here!" she ordered, taking command on the instant. "Come back here, young man, and pay me for this dinner! And Virginia Huff, you go out into the kitchen--how many times do I have to speak to you?"
Virginia started and stopped, her resentful eyes on Wiley, a thin smile parting her lips.
"Yes, and I meant it, too," he answered fiercely. "There's your pay--and you can keep your mine."
"Why, certainly," responded the Widow without knowing what she was talking about, "and now you eat that dinner!"
She pointed a finger to the tray of food and looked Wiley Holman in the eye. He wavered, gazing from her to the smiling Virginia, and then he drew up his chair.
"I'll go you," he said and showed his teeth in a grin. "You can't hurt my feelings that way."
He lifted the T-bone steak from the platter and transferred it swiftly to his plate and then, as he fell to eating ravenously, the Widow condescended to smile.
"When I go to the trouble of cooking a man a steak," she announced with the suggestion of a swagger, "I expect him to stay and eat it."
"All right," mumbled Wiley, and glancing fleeringly at Virginia, he went ahead with his meal.
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