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. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE YARN AL FREEMAN TOLD Al Freeman, slouched forward on a box, dangled a cold cigarette from his loose lips and gave Bill the slinking, slant-eyed regard of a trapped coyote. Behind him, Tommy stood grim, with his underjaw lifted and thrust forward in a comical attempt to look as deadly as he felt. Thrust within the waistband of his sagging gray trousers was an ivory-handled revolver which had lately done its share toward intimidating the man before him. Bill held his underlip between his teeth, lest he smile and so spoil a dramatic situation evidently quite precious to the little Irishman, whom Nature had never meant for a swashbuckling hero.