Chapter 29

RIMROCK DOES IT HIMSELF

"Now, let's talk reason," said Rimrock at last as he put away her hands. "Let's be reasonable--I don't know where I'm at. Say, where have I been and what have I been up to? Am I the same feller that blowed into town on the blind baggage, or is this all a part of the dream?"

"It's a part of the dream," answered Mary with a sigh. "But if you help, Rimrock, it may come true."

"Do you mean it?" he demanded. "Well, I guess you must or you wouldn't give me a kiss like that. Say, you think a lot of me, now don't you, Little Spitfire? I believe you'd go through hell for me."

"No, I wouldn't," she replied. "That's just where I draw the line--because you'd be going through hell, too. You're a good man, Rimrock--you've got a good heart--but you're a drunken, fighting brute."

"Hmm!" shrilled Rimrock, "say, that don't sound very nice after what you said a minute ago."

"We're talking reason, now," said Mary, smiling wanly, "I was excited a minute ago."

"Well, get excited again," suggested Rimrock, but she pushed his hands away.

"No," she said, "I kissed you once because--well, because I liked you and--and to show that I forgive what you've done. But a woman must consider what love might mean and I'll never marry a drunkard. I know women who have and they all regretted it--it took all the sweetness out of life. A woman expects so much--so much of tenderness and sympathy and gentleness and consideration--and a drunken man is a brute. You know it, because you've been there; and, oh, you don't know how I'd hate you if you ever came back to me drunk! I'd leave you--I'd never consent for a minute to so much as touch your hand--and so it's better just to be friends."

She sighed and hurried on to a subject less unpleasant.

"Now, there's the matter of that claim. You know I hold title to the Old Juan and it gives me control of the mine. Even Stoddard acknowledges it, although he'll try to get around it; and if we press him he'll take it to the courts. But now listen, Rimrock, this is a matter of importance and I want you to help me out. I want you to attend to getting my discovery work before the ninety days has expired. Then we'll draw up a complete and careful agreement of just what we want at the mine and Whitney H. Stoddard, if I know anything about him, will be only too glad to sign it. I told him before I left him that this chicanery must cease and that you must be given back your mine. I told him you must run it, and that Jepson must be fired--but Rimrock, there's one thing more."

"What's that?" enquired Rimrock rousing up from his abstraction and she smiled and patted his hand.

"You mustn't fight him," she suggested coaxingly. "It interferes with the work."

"Fight who?" he demanded and then he snorted. "What, me make friends with Stoddard? Why, it's that crooked hound that's at the bottom of all this. He's the man that's made all the trouble. Why, we were doing fine, girl; we were regular pardners and I wasn't drinking a drop. I was trying to make good and show you how I loved you when he butted in on the game. He saw he couldn't beat us as long as we stood together and so he sent out that damnable Mrs. Hardesty. He hired her on purpose and she worked me for a sucker by feeding me up with big words. She told me I was a wonder, and a world-beater for a gambler, and then--well, you know the rest. I went back to New York and they trimmed me right, and if it wasn't for you I'd be broke. No, I'll never forget what you did for me, Mary; and I'll never forget what he did, either!"

"No, I hope you won't," she said, winking fast, "because that's what's ruined your life. He can always whip you when it comes to business, because you fight in the open and he never shows his hand. And he's absolutely unscrupulous--he'd think no more of ruining our happiness than--than you do, when you're fighting mad. Oh, if you knew how I suffered during all those long months when you were stock-gambling and going around with--her."

"Aw, now, Mary," he soothed, wiping away the sweat from his brow; and then he took her into his arms. "Now, don't cry," he said, "because I went back there to look for you--I paid out thousands of dollars for detectives. And when I saw you that time, when you came down the stairway in that opera house back in New York, I never went near her again. I quit her at the door and had detectives out everywhere; but, you went away, you never gave me a chance!"

"Well," she sobbed, "we all make mistakes, but--but I was so ashamed, to be jealous of _her_. Couldn't you see what she was? Couldn't you tell that type of woman? Oh, Rimrock, it was perfectly awful! Everybody that saw you, every woman that looked at her, must have--oh, I just can't bear to think about it!"

"My God!" groaned Rimrock; and then he was silent, looking sober-eyed away into space. It came over him at last what this woman had borne from him and yet she had been faithful to the end. She had even befriended him after he had accused her of treachery, but she had reserved the privilege of hating him. Perhaps that was the woman of it, he did not know; if so, he had never observed it before. Or perhaps--he straightened up and drew her closer--perhaps she was the One Woman in the world! Perhaps she was the only woman he would ever know who would love him for himself, and take no thought for his money. She had loved him when he was poor----

"Say," he said in a far-away voice, "do you remember when I saw you that first time? You looked mighty good to me then. And I was so ragged, and wild and woolly, but you sure came through with the roll. The whole roll, at that. Say, I ain't going to forget that--Rimrock Jones never forgets a friend. Some time when you ain't looking for it I'm going to do something for you like giving that roll to me. Something hard, you understand; something that will take the hide off of me like parting with the savings of a lifetime. But I haven't got anything to give."

"Yes, you have," she said, "and it will hurt just the same. It is something you had on then."

"Huh, I didn't have hardly anything but my clothes and my gun. You don't mean----"

"Yes, I mean the gun."

"Oh!" he said, and fell into silence while she watched him from beneath her long lashes. He reached back ruefully and drew out his pistol and twirled the cylinder with his thumb.

"That's a fine old gun," he said at last. "I sure have carried it many a mile."

"Yes," she answered, and sat there, waiting, and at last he met her eyes.

"What's the idea?" he asked, but his tone was resentful--he knew what was in her mind.

"I just want it," she said. "More than anything else. And you must never get another one."

"How'm I going to protect myself?" he demanded hotly. "How'm I going to protect my claims? If it wasn't for that gun, where'd the Old Juan be to-day?"

"Well, where is it?" she asked and smiled.

"Why----"

"Why, you lost it," she supplied. "And I won it," she added. "It stands in my name to-day."

"Yes, but Andrew McBain----"

"Was he any smarter than Stoddard? Well, I didn't need any gun."

"Yes, but look who you are!" observed Rimrock sarcastically and balanced the old gun in his hand.

"Well, there we are," she remarked at last. "Right back where we started from."

"Where's that?" he enquired.

"Back to our first quarrel," she sighed. "A woman never forgets it. It's different, I suppose, with a man."

"Yes, I reckon it is," he agreed despondently. "We try to forget our troubles."

"Does it help any to get drunk?" she asked impersonally and he saw where the conversation had swung. It had veered back again to his merits as a married man and the answer had come from his own lips. He knew too well that look in her eye, that polite and polished calm. Mary Fortune was not strong for scenes. She just made up her mind and then all the devils in hell could not sway her from her purpose. And she had rejected him as a gun-fighter and a drunkard.

"Here! Now!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet in alarm. "Now here, don't get me wrong! Say, I'd give my heart's blood, just for one more kiss--do you think I'll hold out on this gun? Here, take it, girl, and if I ever drink a drop I want you to shoot me dead!"

He handed over the gun and she took it solemnly, but with a twinkle far back in her eyes.

"I couldn't do that," she said, "because I love you too much, Rimrock."

"And another thing," he went on, smiling grimly as she kissed him.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Well, I'll give you 'most anything, if you'll only ask for it; but remember, I do it myself."

THE END