CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BILL AND THE TAME BANDITS

Bill stood on the top step of the front porch, looking down into the scowling faces of a committee of workmen from the mine. Seamed, not too clean some of them, hard-eyed every one, they stood looking up at him, measuring as they were being measured. He had seen them coming up the hill, had thought some accident had happened, had come to meet them. There he stopped short, on guard. He had seen miners' committees before now. They needed no banner to announce their kind and purpose.

"Come in, boys," he said, when the silence became marked. "You seem to have something on your chests."

He turned to the door, and they followed him, saying nothing. That in itself was of unfriendly portent. Many of these men he knew by sight, a few had speaking acquaintance with him. He had returned the evening before from the Coast, and he felt a swift desire for a full record of the day since he had left Parowan. Something must have happened, some grievance of which he was wholly in ignorance must have arisen in his absence.

Bill saw how they stared around at the beautiful room, and looked at one another afterwards with a grim significance. He stiffened mentally.

"All right, now, let's have it--since you are here. But the office is the proper place for business, you know. Why didn't you go there?"

"It's you we want to see this morning, Mr. Dale," a small, shrewd-faced man said quietly. "Mr. Rayfield and Mr. Emmett have done all they can for us. We'll have to talk straight from the shoulder, now, so we came to the man who's responsible."

"All right." Bill sat down and crossed one leg over the other,--a habit of which Doris did not approve. "Responsible for what?"

"For getting away with the money, so our wages haven't been paid this month. And so the company can't go ahead and find the ore again. The boss has done his best. He's proved that. When the Company failed to meet the payroll, Mr. Rayfield and Mr. Emmett lent a lot of the boys money out of their own pockets to tide things over. And we had just stood a cut in wages----"

"If you'll excuse me just a minute," said Bill in his best city manner, "I'll call the office."

They seemed to suspect some trick, even in that. But the small man did nothing to prevent Bill from leaving the room, so no one else did anything. But Bill had only reached the door when he swung back.

"We'll go down to the office together," he said quietly. "You fellows aren't here just to pass the time away, I take it. And I just got back last night. I don't know what's happened while I was away, so we'll just go down where I can find out the truth of the matter."

They were a taciturn lot. They said nothing whatever to that, but rose and followed him out, skidding a little on the polished floor. Bill was thankful for their silence. He wanted to think, and he needed to think swiftly.

For two months, a new rule at the mine had shut him out almost entirely from the works. Rayfield had explained that it was because some one had tampered with the safety of the men,--had in fact set fire to a section of timbering. The effect was that no man was permitted on the works without a special, written permit from the general manager.

Bill had run into that restriction unawares. The superintendent had been sorry, but firm. Rayfield, he said, would not excuse any violation of the rule. Bill must go to him for a permit. Bill had gone and had received the permit, which was good only for one visit. Rayfield could not risk the misuses of a pass, he said. He had too much on his shoulders.

Bill had taken the permit and had torn it in two before Walter's eyes. "And who writes the permit for _you_?" he had asked contemptuously and had stalked out. Rayfield had attempted to make light of the affront, but he had not recalled the order.

Bill would not run to him for permission when he wanted to go into his own mine, so he had kept away from the works, and as far as possible he had kept away from the office as well. Who was he to butt in? he had asked himself resentfully. _He_ was only the president of the Company. And, having matters of his own to occupy his mind and his time, he had not concerned himself further with the management of the mine.

Two or three men whom he met on the street looked at them strangely, but the group continued to the office without being questioned by any,--though Bill fancied that he could read anxiety in more than one pair of eyes that met him on the street. The silence of the mine machinery was noticeable and depressing. Bill was bracing himself for the worst.

The worst met him in the office of Parowan Consolidated, and it met him with a soothing pat on the shoulder--which did not soothe--and a deprecatory shake of Walter Rayfield's head. Emmett was in the room, also, standing by the window with his hands in his pockets as if he were out of a job. Which he was, as a matter of fact.

"I was going to send for you, Bill," said Walter. "I wasn't sure you came home last night, however."

Bill passed the civilities by as of no moment.

"What's all this about the mine being on the rocks?" He did not mince matters. He was past that.

Walter looked at him reproachfully with his good eye and pursed his lips.

"You saw it coming," he said mildly. "I kept preaching retrenchment, you know, when our ore began to pinch out. Hopeful Bill wouldn't listen." He glanced swiftly at the committee of six. "So the result that I warned you of has come to pass. We have no ore, no money, and some debts. The boys haven't had their wages this payday, Bill." His tone was maddeningly reproachful. It implied that Bill was to blame for all this. Bill accepted the challenge.

"How do you blame _me_ for that?" Again he was clenching his hands in his pockets, holding his temper rigidly under control. He wanted to get to the bottom of this amazing state of affairs. He _had_ to get to the bottom of it.

"Wel-l----" Walter fiddled with a pencil on the desk, "----of course we know it costs money to build fine houses, and dividends must be paid promptly to meet the needs of--the occasion. But one can't go on paying dividends unless there is some income to warrant it. I admit that I erred in my judgment in one respect. I was in hopes that the ore would hold out longer than it did. We might have carried things along until the first of the year, at least. Then, John and I intended to resign and let you take the load on your own shoulders. We have done the best we could but----" he shook his head regretfully "----we couldn't keep the dollars rolling in quite fast enough. Not--quite."

Bill stared at him stupidly. He looked at John Emmett, who had turned and was facing them, his hard eyes fixed on Bill.

"I should like," said Bill, "to bring in an auditor to go over the books. How you've worked it I don't pretend to know--but I see you've done it. I don't suppose the books will show it either. I reckon you've been too cute for that--since you've been working out a plan from the start. But we'll go through the motions of getting at the bottom of this. And before we go any farther, I'll admit that I know almost exactly how much of a damned fool I've been. But you're slick, you two. It took me so long to figure you out that you got away with it before I was in a position to stop you. There's nothing," he sneered, "like the friendship game to skin a man with. It beats a knife in the dark, any time. John, let's see the cash balance--if there is any; or did you two dig out the corners?"

Rayfield sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Emmett lifted his lip at Bill like a wolf and did not move.

"No use trying to put up any bluff," he snarled. "You're the president of this Company--you sign all the checks, don't you? If you don't know where the Company stands, who would?"

The small, shrewd-faced man interrupted, standing a bit forward from the group.

"All this is interesting," he said, "but it don't get us fellows anywhere. We came to find out about the payroll. We've been stood off now for ten days. We want to know where we stand."

Bill turned his head and studied the men briefly, the small man longest.

"You stand in line, along with the rest of the bunch," he said, with a heartening grin. "Go back and tell the men to mosey down here to the office. They'll get their pay, all right."

They looked at him, and from him their eyes went to the other two. The small man turned to the door.

"They'll be here, Mr. Dale," he said. Bill never could decide afterwards just what lay behind the little man's words. They had sounded somewhat like a threat.

"Get out the payroll, John," he said crisply. "And the nice, big check