BILL GIVES THE PUBLIC MIND A LIFT

Bill brushed past the sleek-haired office girl who attempted to bar his way and turned the knob on the door marked PRIVATE. He did not know which man he would find within; he was slightly relieved to find Walter Rayfield sitting behind a great, mahogany desk, staring at him in blank astonishment.

"Hullo, Walter." Bill crossed the room, his hand outstretched in greeting, the old, humorous grin on his face that had lost much of its tan.

"Well, well! The prodigal come home for the fatted calf?" Rayfield pulled himself together and rose, his lips pursed. "Veal's bringing a good price, Bill. Have to make it a small calf."

Bill did not know what he meant by that; nothing, probably, unless he was aiming at a witty remark. A year had made a difference in Walter B. Rayfield. He was fatter, and there were heavy pouches under his eyes. The milky one was almost hidden under a drooping lid, which gave him a facetious appearance of winking slily at whomever he chanced to be looking. His face had lines graven deep by the responsibilities of the past months. Altogether, Walter Rayfield looked older and less paternal, Bill thought.

"How are things going?" Bill sat down in the chair pulled close to the desk and reached for his tobacco and papers. "According to the Record, things are still humming at Parowan."

Rayfield glanced down at a pile of correspondence on the desk. Then, knowing that Bill would probably stay until he had smoked one cigarette at least, he pushed the tray back resignedly and leaned forward, his fingers lightly clasped and tapping one another rhythmically.

"Things are humming," Rayfield confirmed guardedly. "I suppose you read of our shutdown to replace certain machinery?"

"Sure. That was last summer, sometime. Got it in, yet?"

Rayfield shook his head. "Those things take time," he said. "Stock has fallen off a few points in consequence—naturally. And how is Mrs. Dale and daughter?"

"Just fine. Doris sent regards."

"Which I return fourfold." Rayfield smiled gallantly. "When are you going back? Of course, I take it you did not bring them with you."

"No, I didn't bring them. They're camped at the Palace for the winter. I'm going to stick here for awhile." Bill glanced out of the window and down into the squalid street, and wondered how Doris would like that particular vista. He did not see the peculiar stiffening of the muscles along Rayfield's jaw.

"Going to stay? That's great news, Bill. Come back to try and speed things up, I suppose?"

Bill looked at him. Did Walter resent his coming, as betraying a lack of confidence in the present management? His tone had sounded mildly aggrieved.

"No need of that, is there? Things seem to be going all right, far as I've heard. No, Walter, I came back to take charge—of building us a home here. I'd like to see a plan of the town and look over any available ground left in the residence district. I'll want a full block, at least; high ground, where there's a view of the desert and the hills. I expect it will take a few months to build it, but I'm going to rush it right through. And say, by the way! Can you tell me whether there's anybody in town that's able to lay the foundation? I've got all the plans and specifications—copies of them—with me. I'm going to have the builders come on from San Francisco, but they're just finishing up a contract now, and I can save time by having the foundation ready when they're free to come. Think I'd better take bids on it, or just give the contract to the best man? A few dollars, one way or the other, won't make any difference. I want a good job; one that'll stand forever."

Rayfield's mouth had opened slightly in the beginning, and had closed in his genial smile. The paternal look was back in his face.

"My, my! That will be great news to the town, it surely will! I've had some little trouble, Bill, convincing people that you hadn't just made your clean-up and quit the town cold. When it's known that you are back and building a home, that will silence all criticism." Rayfield nodded and drummed his fingers animatedly.

"Criticism—of me?" Bill's face clouded. "I thought you kept writing I wasn't needed."

"Perfectly true. Unless you feel that John and I have shown that we are incompetent, you are not needed at all. But you know people will talk—and with you gone so long and showing no interest, it began to look to some of the leading business men as if you had—well, unloaded."

What Bill would have replied to that was not known. They were interrupted by the entrance of John Emmett, who had evidently been in a hurry, but forgot his haste to stare at Bill.

"Time I came home," said Bill, getting up to shake hands. "Everybody looks as if I were a ghost that ought to get back under my marble monument and stay there."

"Not at all," Emmett protested. "Your back was to the light, and I couldn't make out who you were, at first. Well, how are you?"

"News for the town, John," Rayfield interrupted briskly. "Bill's here to build a fine home for his family. I've promised to help him look up a building site, and get a contractor on the job to lay the foundation. Going to start right away—that right, Bill? I got the impression you were in something of a hurry to begin."

Emmett looked from one to the other and laughed a little.

"Thought you'd come to fire us because we're about to pass a dividend," he said. "I was just writing you to that effect."

Rayfield pursed his lips. "Bill is not a child," he said reprovingly. "He knows dividends aren't paid out of extension costs. Once we're running full blast again, we'll be paying double what we have in the past, and Parowan Consolidated will soar again. We've done well to pay last quarter's dividends—with the mill shut down and the men out on strike."

"I didn't know we'd had a strike," Bill said inquiringly.

Rayfield threw back his head and laughed silently.

"Well, it was sort of hushed up in the paper, naturally. The men did walk out—and we seized the opportunity to make the necessary changes and repairs in the plant. John and I were rather glad, on the whole. Saved us laying men off, which would have looked bad. Company wasn't out a dollar on the strike, and to keep the stockholders easy in their minds, we paid last quarter's dividends out of our sinking fund. Now, because the alterations are taking longer than we expected, we have thought it best to pass this dividend and explain just why. Your appearance, with the intention of building a home in Parowan, should counteract any ill effect on the public mind." He stopped and looked at Bill inquiringly as a thought seemed to strike him suddenly.

"You—er—you have sufficient funds, I take it, to carry out your plans," he ventured. "Because, in the event that you haven't, I should strongly advise you to postpone your building until the mine is producing again. These repairs and changes run into money, my boy, and the Company will not be able to advance anything, I'm afraid, for another three or four months. I was on the point of writing you to trim sails a bit—until we are turning the wheels again."

Bill chewed his lip thoughtfully, turning his eyes again to the window.

"I'm safe on the building, I reckon," he said, after a pause which was not too comfortable for the others. "I saved that out." He turned toward them smilingly. "She's going to be a dandy, too," he said. "Parowan will sit up and take notice when my shack is finished. Not so very big, you know—but a gem all the way through. I've calculated to put about seventy-five thousand dollars into the building itself. She'll stand me a round hundred thousand when she's ready to walk into.

His partners looked at each other. Rayfield sucked in his breath sharply.

"My, my! And I was afraid you were short of money!" he chuckled, when he had recovered his breath. "Bill, you're a wonder. Way you've been living——"

"About all the money I've spent," said Bill grimly, "is on hotel bills—and a few trinkets for Doris. Her income that you have been sending her she spent on clothes and truck. Didn't give me a chance. She liked to spend her own money, she said. So—I can build the house, all right. I've got money enough."

"And what about your wife?" Rayfield spoke unguardedly. "She won't be getting any more from this office, for awhile." He waved a deprecating hand. "Pardon my apparent presumption, Bill. I merely want to make sure that you can ride along for the next ninety days or so without any money from us."

"Why, sure! That's all right, Walter. I don't gamble or drink, you see. And I didn't play the races—which is gambling, too. So I didn't get away with all you sent me. I can make out all right for awhile."

He rose and picked his hat off the desk.

"I'll be going, I reckon. You've got work to do—hope your salaries will go on?" he looked at them.

"Yes—oh, yes. It's only the dividends that must be omitted this quarter," Rayfield hastened to assure him.

"Well, that's all fine, then. I'm afraid you'll have to go on earning your money. I've got this house to build, and I want to see that it's built the right way. I'm going to stand guard over them. Just now, I'm going downstairs and have an account opened for me. I've got the house money with me, and if it's in the bank, Parowan will know I'm not four-flushing about the home. If the public mind needs a tonic, that ought to help."

Rayfield stood up and leaned with his knuckles on the desk.

"It will help amazingly," he said solemnly. "It will serve to instil new life in the commercial veins of this town. I tell you frankly, Bill, I did not like to pass this dividend just now, when the town has passed the first fever of enthusiasm and should be stimulated to go on with full confidence in the future. The fact that you have sufficient confidence to invest in a fine house here will have a tremendous effect on the morale of the town."

"All right," Bill grinned. "I'll go slide a pinchbar under the public mind and give it a lift. And say! Who's the best man to talk foundation to?"

"Fellow name of McGaran," Emmett told him promptly. "You'll find his sign down the street in the next block. He did our cement work, and he's a good man."

Bill went out and down the stairs, humming a little tune just above his breath. Presently, the president of the Parowan Security, Trust and Savings Bank was giving his hands a dry wash and smiling and bowing at almost everything Bill said. Teller, cashier and assistant cashier were bustling out of sight with slips of paper in their hands, looking extremely important until the ground-glass partition hid them from the front, and whispering then, heads close together, with the bookkeeper, trying his best to edge in a question or two.

"Bill Dale—he's here—just deposited sixty-thousand dollars, cashier's check from the Hibernian, in 'Frisco!" The teller took hurried pity on the bookkeeper. "He's with the boss now. Come out in a minute and consult me about a check, and take a look at him. Boy, he looks like a regular fellow!"

The bookkeeper almost missed him, at that. Bill was having his busy day. Before the bank employees quit buzzing, Bill was conferring with McGaran about cement and making time the essence of the contract, as lawyers say.

From McGaran's office Bill went to a place said to be the Town-site Office,—just behind the bank, it was. And in fifteen minutes he was riding a hard-driven automobile over slopes which had furnished scant grazing for his burros not so long ago. For himself he would have built the house beside his tent, but for Doris that wouldn't do at all. The working class had crowded into that part of town, because it was close to the mine. Wherefore, Bill examined vacant plots far removed from the grime and the noise of money-getting.

Before noon he had acquired personal title to a knoll not too far from the business section, nor so close that any part of the magnificent sweep of desert and distant mountains could ever be hidden from the windows and wide porches of his Mary's home. Laying aside his sentiment for his old camp ground, and trying to see all this with the eyes of Doris and, later, of his little Mary, Bill looked long and said to himself that he had done well.

By then, all Parowan knew that Bill Dale had returned and meant to start immediately upon the building of a mansion. A new light shone in the eyes of certain men who had been looking anxiously for some sign in the heavens to tell them whether the prosperity of Parowan would break or hold.

For this there was a reason. Other prospects had been exploited far beyond their deserts. Their little bubbles had glowed iridescent for a time, and were going the way of all bubbles. Parowan Consolidated was the only real mine behind the town, the one big industry that could hold prosperity upon the mountain side. Other small camps had appeared in near-by canyons, desert mushrooms more or less poisonous to the unwary.

At first it had been believed that the gold Bill Dale had found would be uncovered elsewhere in the district. The promoters of Parowan had carefully fostered that belief, and even yet the men on the outside were unaware of the fact that certain other opulently named companies were riding precariously up the tail of Bill Dale's kite. They advertised their properties as being "adjoining the Parowan Consolidated properties," and sold stock on the strength of that statement rather than because of any particular value in their own claims. And the Parowan Record was doing all that any boom-town newspaper could do to discourage discouragement and foster faith in the district.

There was meaning in Rayfield's declaration that the passing of a dividend by Parowan Consolidated was unfortunate at that particular time, and that the coming of Bill was likely to prove a godsend to the town.

The business men watched Bill covertly for a time, still anxious. Then, when material for the big house began to arrive, and expert builders from the city; when trucks and men were busy on the knoll, certain of the watchers breathed freer and relinquished certain secret plans they had been making to leave Parowan as quietly as possible while they could pull out with a profit.

Bill himself was enough to put heart into the most timorous. He was so happy to be back and to be building his home that his voice lifted the spirits and set men to smiling at nothing in particular. The twinkle was back in his eyes; his laugh was a tonic. With Hez slouching along at his heels and Luella riding his shoulder, he walked the streets and had a word for every man who met his eye with friendly glance; bossed the job of the building. When he made brief visits to Doris and the baby, Parowan was uneasy until he returned.

The passing of the dividend created scarcely a ripple of comment, since Bill Dale was there, spending money on a home, and since Bill said that Parowan Consolidated was merely getting ready to shovel out the gold in chunks.

"Can't pay dividends, boys, when we're spending money on new machinery," he said easily, believing it all in the bottom of his heart.

Those who had begun to sell a little of their Parowan stock wished they had kept it. And those who could, bought more. Four times par they paid for it, and called it a good investment. Bill told them that it was beyond question a deep, rich, permanent mine, and that as long as he had anything to do with it, Parowan was not going to turn a dishonest dollar.

That winter the town continued to grow and to prosper. And on the fourteenth day of February Parowan Consolidated asked for extra guards for the express car, and made a valentine shipment of gold. Almost immediately, stockholders were notified that the regular dividend would be made.

So Parowan had passed its critical period of uncertainty and was accepted as a permanent town that might even rival Goldfield and Tonopah in wealth, give it a little time.