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 book I've kept signed up for you. The men will be here, and they'll have to be paid."

"There's not enough money in the bank to pay them." Emmett's voice was surly.

"Get the books, I said. The men are going to be paid."

Perhaps Emmett thought it would not be worth while to oppose him. Perhaps he knew the temper the men would be in. He brought the books, slapping them down on Rayfield's desk ill-naturedly.

"They've waited ten days," said Bill. "You begin figuring their time up to and including to-day."

Rayfield ceased for a moment to drum his fingers. "They've been out for two days, Bill," he said. "Quit of their own accord."

"Up to and including to-day," Bill repeated distinctly. He picked up the telephone and called the bank, asked for the Company's balance and got it. The modesty of that balance astonished him, even now.

"Send up a messenger for a deposit," he said easily and put down the 'phone. "Now, what's the payroll?"

"Including our salaries, which have not been paid for the last three months——"

Bill reached out a long arm and got him by the front, pulling him close. "I'd love to smash every bone in your body, you tame bandit," he gritted. "But we won't add any rough stuff to this—yet. I want to find out, first, just how rough to make it."

He let John go with a savage push that slammed him against the wall. "I want you two crooks to know just where I stand," he said between his teeth. "You've raided and wrecked my Company, deliberately, and as completely as you could. You've squeezed the lemon dry, and you've been peddling lies about me and mine, to cover up your dirty work. I don't need to be knocked down with a club, once my eyes are open. You've asked me to accept paper for my dividends, all summer, so there would be a decent cut for the rest. I did it,—and don't you reckon I can't prove it?

"Now, you're going to come clean. It won't get you anything but whole bones, because I mean to send you to the pen for this, if I can prove it on you. I fight for my own. And now, how much will it take to cover the payroll? The messenger's outside."

Emmett growled the amount, and Bill wrote a check, asked for the bank book and got it just as the messenger rapped on the door.

"Wait a minute, sonny," he called, when the boy was leaving. "I want you to do an errand for me, if you will."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Dale." Boys must worship heroes, and Bill was the man this youngster had chosen for his own. One read it in his eyes, in his voice, in his glowing eagerness to serve.

Bill scribbled a short note to Tommy, and held it out with a dollar. The boy shook his head at the money, took the note and bowed himself out with a quaint courtesy that would have amused Bill at any other time.

"Now, you'll write the checks, John. And you'll say no word to the men—that goes for both. Stay right where you are, Walter."

There was a heavy trampling on the stairs, and Bill threw open the door into the outer office.

"You can go," he said to the girl, sitting wide-eyed behind her typewriting desk. "Or, rather, come in here. I may need you later on." He raised his voice. "Come on in, boys. A's come first into the private office, B's follow, and so on. And as you get your checks, please go right on out. Saves crowding."

He needn't have worried about their going right out. The first A headed straight down to the bank, and the second A was presently at his heels. The workmen of Parowan Consolidated had listened to ugly rumors too long to take chances.

A late comer squeezed past and into the private office, accompanied by inquiries as to how he spelled his name. Bill turned his head and nodded at Tommy.

"All right—you sit over there by the window," he said carelessly, and went on with his work of watching Emmett write the pay checks, taking each one damp from his fingers, calling out the name of the man to whom it belonged and placing a pen in his fingers for the signing of the payroll.

Bill saw the flare of surprise in more than one man's eyes as he read the amount of his pay. Bill's hand would clamp down on the man's shoulder for an instant with a friendly pressure as he spun the fellow out of the way of the next. He spoke to none, but he had a nod and a smile for many. He looked into the faces of men whom he believed were guilty of treachery to the Company and to him, but he gave no sign of suspicion. There were others who could have told him much, but he asked no question. The routine of payday was observed without comment. The only change was the paying of the men in the office.

So presently the last man had clumped down the stairs and into the bank, and only Tommy remained, sitting grimly in his corner, staring owlishly through his thick-lensed glasses. Bill shot him a sidelong glance, lifted an eyebrow and bent over the check book before Emmett. John had a wonderful head for figures. The balance on the last stub would not have bought a dinner at the O'Hara House.

"Not much chance to graft off that," grinned Bill, and pointed at the figures. "Now, you spoke about debts. Dig 'em up, John."

"What's that roughneck doing here?" Emmett growled, looking at Tommy insultingly. "We don't owe him anything."

"Oh, yes, you do," Bill retorted evenly. "You owe him about the only thing in the world you're able to pay. Implicit obedience." He paused to let those two words sink in. "I never thought I'd ever have to call in a gun-man to camp on your shadow. But he's here, and he's got too many notches on his gun to be scared about adding another one or two. Tommy, you'll go with Mr. Emmett into the other office, and stand over him while he digs up Bills Payable. He should find them in a book—not in the right-hand drawer of his desk! You're a gun-man. You know what I mean, I guess."

"I do that, Mr. Dale," Tommy rumbled ominously. "He'll return wit' the Bills Payable, have no doubt of that."

"Bill, this is an outrage!" Walter Rayfield reached for the telephone, but Bill snatched it away from his finger tips.

"You're damned right, it's an outrage. But the remedy is going to be applied as fast as possible."

"You're letting the lies that Al Freeman told poison your mind. John and I have worked hard for this Company. We've gone without our salaries for three months now, because the funds were getting low. And this is all the thanks we get. You come blustering in here at the last minute, trying to bully and play the bad man. You can't get away with it, Bill." Rayfield shook his head sorrowfully. "Bluffing won't lift the Company out of the hole it's in. You've paid off the men—but there are the stockholders to think of, and the debts. And the ore has petered out, Bill. One of those rich surface deposits with no depth to it." He pursed his lips, drumming on the table with his fingers. "Your fine friends from San Francisco dug out the last of it, Bill, for souvenirs. A fitting end to Parowan and the fortunes of Hopeful Bill Dale. A picturesque ending—but the end, nevertheless."

Bill did not trouble to answer him. In a moment, Emmett returned with his arms full of books, the dangerous Tommy treading close on his heels.

"Not knowin' which would be the right wan, I had him bring them all, Mr. Dale. An' his gun was not in the right-hand drawer. It was in his pocket. Here it is, Mr. Dale,—in case yuh've neglected to pack wan yourself. An' if yuh don't mind, Mr. Dale, I'd like fer to have yuh search him fer a knife. Them's the kind of crooks that packs 'em, Mr. Dale,—as it's been my experience to know. An' I'd search the other wan whilst I was about it, Mr. Dale. I would that."

Tommy's suggestion was gravely complied with, in the presence and to the horror of the wide-eyed typist. Bill apologized to her with a smile, but he did not suggest that she leave the room. Messrs. Rayfield and Emmett were wily gentlemen. The girl might easily be in their confidence and their private pay. He did not know where they had gotten her, but he remembered that she had reigned supreme over the outer office ever since Parowan Consolidated had established itself there.

"Now, John, write checks for all these bills. All of them, that is, that are authentic. Have this girl get them ready for the mail. If you'll come with me, young lady, I'll help you bring your typewriter in here for sake of convenience. Mr. Emmett and Mr. Rayfield are not moving about much, to-day."