Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Nevada -- Fiction; Western stories
"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!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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