Rimrock Jones | Page 8

"and I guess you know
why I've come!"
"No, I don't," she answered, "but--but this is my office and I hope you
won't make any trouble."
The words came with a rush, once she found her courage, but the
appeal was lost upon Rimrock.
"He's here, then!" he said. "Well, you tell him to come out. I'd like to
talk with him on business--alone!"
He took a step forward and then suddenly from behind the desk a
shadow rose up and fled. It was Andrew McBain, and as he dashed for

the rear door the girl valiantly covered his retreat. There was a quick
slap of the latch, a scuffle behind her, and the door came shut with a
bang.
"Oho!" said Rimrock as she faced him panting, "he must be a friend of
yourn."
"No, he isn't," she answered instantly, and then a smile crept into her
eyes. "But he's--well, he's my principal customer."
"Oh," said Rimrock grimly, "well, I'll let him live then. Good-bye."
He turned away, still intent on his purpose, but at the door she called
him back.
"What's that?" he asked as if awakened from a dream. "Why, yes, if
you don't mind, I will."
CHAPTER III
MISS FORTUNE
It was very informal, to say the least, for Mary Fortune to invite him to
stay. To be sure, she knew him--he was the man with the gun, the man
of whom McBain was afraid--but that was all the more reason, to a
reasoning woman, why she should keep silent and let him depart. But
there was a business-like brevity about him, a single-minded directness,
that struck her as really unique. Quite apart from the fact that it might
save McBain, she wanted him to stay there and talk. At least so she
explained it, the evening afterwards, to her censorious other-self. What
she did was spontaneous, on the impulse of the moment, and without
any reason whatever.
"Oh, won't you sit down a moment?" she had murmured politely; and
the savage, fascinating Westerner, after one long look, had with equal
politeness accepted.
"Yes, indeed," he answered when he had got his wits together, "you're

very kind to ask me, I'm sure."
He came back then, a huge, brown, ragged animal and sat down, very
carefully, in her spare chair. Why he did so when his business, not to
mention a just revenge, was urgently calling him thence, was a question
never raised by Rimrock Jones. Perhaps he was surprised beyond the
point of resistance; but it is still more likely that, without his knowing it,
he was hungry to hear a woman's voice. His black mood left him, he
forgot what he had come there for, and sat down to wonder and admire.
He looked at her curiously, and his eyes for one brief moment took in
the details of the headband over her ear; then he smiled to himself in
his masterful way as if the sight of her pleased him well. There was
nothing about her to remind him of those women who stalked up and
down the street; she was tall and slim with swift, capable hands, and
every line of her spoke subtly of style. Nor was she lacking in those
qualities of beauty which we have come to associate with her craft. She
had quiet brown eyes that lit up when she smiled, a high nose and
masses of hair. But across that brown hair that a duchess might have
envied lay the metal clip of her ear-'phone, and in her dark eyes, bright
and steady as they were, was that anxious look of the deaf.
"I hope I wasn't rude," she stammered nervously as she sat down and
met his glance.
"Oh, no," he said with the same carefree directness, "it was me, I
reckon, that was rude. I certainly didn't count on meeting a lady when I
came in here looking for--well, McBain. He won't be back, I reckon.
Kind of interferes with business, don't it?"
He paused and glanced at the rear door and the typist smiled, discreetly.
"Oh, no," she said. And then, lowering her voice: "Have you had
trouble with Mr. McBain?"
"Yes, I have," he answered. "You may have heard of me--my name is
Henry Jones."

"Oh--Rimrock Jones?"
Her eyes brightened instantly as he slowly nodded his head.
"That's me," he said. "I used to run this whole town--I'm the man that
discovered the mines."
"What, the Gunsight mines? Why, I thought Mr. McBain----"
"McBain what?"
"Why, I thought he discovered the mines."
Rimrock straightened up angrily, then he sat back in his chair and
shook his head at her cynically.
"He didn't need to," he answered. "All he had to do was to discover an
error in the way I laid out my claim. Then he