CHAPTER XXIII.—RUFUS GRIM S AMBITION. 9207 UFUS GRIM [199] was not pleased with Vance’s management of the Gold Bluff Prospector. A number of items had appeared in the columns of that paper which tended to vindicate Steve Gibbons from all suspicion or connection with the stage coach robbery. Grim considered this an indirect thrust at himself. His money had made him a lion among the people of Gold Bluff, but for some unaccountable reason he was unable to secure Vance Gilder’s good opinion. He secretly had an ambition to represent the people of Idaho in the halls of congress, and felt it would never do to let matters go on with his own town paper prejudiced against him. On several occasions he had made overtures to Vance of a friendly nature, but had, invariably, been repulsed. On one occasion he had endeavored to compliment Vance, and told him patronizingly, in his uncouth, pompous way, that he was very glad such a scholarly gentleman had charge of the Prospector, and that he considered him the most refined and cultured gentleman in Gold Bluff. [200] Vance had coldly replied, “It is an admirable thing, Mr. Grim, to be a cultured and refined man, but it is far better to be a manly man.” Grim had agreed with him, while Vance went quietly on setting type. The rich miner was irritated at his own lack of words when in Vance’s society. With others he was boastful as ever—bragged of his gold, and in his own domineering way, attempted to subdue everything with which he came in contact. 9208 Those who knew his home life best said he was afraid of his wife. She was all formality, and Grim, in his way, honored her, and at the same time, feared her. It was whispered that he found more pleasure in his stepdaughter’s society than in his wife’s. Bertha, with her handsome face and lisping speech, humored her mother’s whims of formality, and tickled the uncouth vanity of her step-father, on whose bounty she was dependent. She was an artful, cooing, little woman, full of strategy and deceit, and hopelessly untruthful. Her clandestine meetings with her cousin, Arthur Boast, were numerous, while in her heart she felt an infatuation for Vance Gilder, and was secretly intensely jealous of Louise Bonifield. Outwardly, she courted Louise, and never missed an opportunity of calling her “her own dear darling,” and telling her how very pretty she was. In the early days of June Arthur Boast returned permanently to Gold Bluff, and at first paid a great deal of attention to Louise, not as a lover, but rather as a friend of the family, and by every artifice known to his cunning endeavored to enlist her sympathy. He frequently [201] observed that no one was his friend, and it pleased him to hear Louise say that “she was his friend, and always had been.” He said nothing derogatory of Vance’s character, but his insinuations were of a wicked nature.