The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

5386 “Carruthers was in Denver at the time. We surprised him once with Deane on one of our many trips to Deane’s office. Oh, we were blind, blind, not to have suspected trickery! But father had faith in Deane up till ten o'clock that last day. It—it—” the girl’s voice quivered in her throat -—‘it was then that Deane threw off his mask and curtly told father he had no money for him, and that he would have to look elsewhere for it. “Look elsewhere! Where could we look? We knew no one in Denver but Deane and Carruthers. I thought father would go crazy. He grabbed Deane by the throat, and I believe he would have killed him if I hadn’t in- terfered. Some clerks came and threw father out of that gilded den of crook- edness, and we spent hours trying to get the money for Carruthers. Mean- while—meanwhile—” | The girl choked and walked up and down the level for a few moments to get control of herself. “ Meanwhile,” she finished, “ Car- - ruthers had transferred the Mariquita ‘Mine to Deane for fifty thousand dol- lars! Do you know what this friend of yours did?” Her eyes flamed, and she leaned to- ward Bremerton with her face set and strained and her breath coming in short, labored gasps. “This friend of yours, this man who hired you to come down here and make a showing with the. mine that would enable him to sell it for half a million, this mean, false-hearted scoun- drel had been browbeating Carruthers all the while he had been feeding my father with hopes and promises. “ He told Carruthers that the Mari- quita Mine was enormously rich, and he declared that if Carruthers would not give him an option on it for fifty thousand dollars he would give my father the money to get it for half that sum. Carruthers could take his choice. “ So far as Carruthers is concerned, I do not think he was much better than THE ARGOSY. ‘Deane. It was the case of two rogues plucking an honest old man. Car- ruthers must have squirmed. For him it was either let the mine go to father or to Deane —a mine worth half a million, and for which the best he could gét was a paltry fifty thousand. “There were high words in that fine office, but Deane won—Carruthers had to give in. Father and I came back to Phoenix, and all we had in the world were a few tools, a few head of horses—and the secret of that rich vein, “So long as that new vein could not be discovered, the Mariquita Mine was worth little. Already our work in the gully had been well hidden, but we went by night and made the hiding more secure. “ Poor Griggsby hunted until he was worn out, and Lacey, too, searched high and low. But neither of them suspected the wall-of that cul-de-sac of containing mineral. “And you had no better luck, Mr. Bremerton. ‘There are absolutely no mineral indications in or around the gully. The original claim there was only an outpost for the .Mariquita property, anyway.” Sadness, almost despair, crept into her voice as she proceeded: “Father and I went back to our little ranch in the canon. We watched the developments over in the valley. We wanted the superintendents Deane sent out here to fail, and we lived in hopes that Deane would at last be forced to come to us and give us a half interest in the property for telling him what we knew. After a time we discovered that other and secret ene- mies were fighting Deane, hampering his operations in every conceivable way and seeking to drive him out of the district. “Night after night, while Griggsby was here, the pipe-line was cut; thiev- ing must have been going on in the mill, too, for the bullion output was barely enough for expenses; the mill was set on fire and barely saved; there COMicdoo S CO@