The Joyous Trouble Maker. Jackson Gregory
matter which detained her. He looked at her curiously as she came in. She saw the expression which leaped into his eyes … he did not seek to hide it … and paid him back for it with a quick smile.
"There were two dimples," said Steele, nodding approval. "I thought so."
She had planned to remain standing during a brief interview. But he had come a step closer and his great bulk towering above her gave her a certain troublesome feeling of helplessness which she knew would not do at all. So, swiftly changing her campaign like any capable general, she moved to her chair at the long table.
"Yes," she answered lightly. "But the poor little things don't get much of an opportunity to show themselves these busy days. Now, Mr. Steele, though every one knows that a girl would rather talk about her own irresistible charms than speak of anything else in the world, I very much regret that I have but a few minutes I can give you. I have some guests coming this afternoon and you know what that means."
He moved around the table so as to stand on the far side of it facing her. Again she noted the bigness of him, sensing the power that lay in the wide shoulders. Taking swift stock of him just as Ben Corliss had ever taken stock of a man in his path, she judged that in Bill Steele there was besides a large happiness a certain dynamic forcefulness of character which it might chance to be as well not to overlook.
Steele had been regarding her intently; she marked in him that little trick of holding his words until he had sought to look at what lay back of one's eyes.
"You are Ben Corliss' girl, up and down," he said abruptly. "Only I wonder if there got squeezed out of your ego something which made him the fine chap he was? Or," he added thoughtfully, "if the spark in poor old Ben burnt out before you knew him?"
"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Steele," she said quietly.
How could she? Here was Bill Steele, a confessed penniless gentleman of misfortune, speaking of her father as "poor old Ben"!
"He had a soul when I knew him," said Steele simply. "But that was before he got both hands full of money."
"I believe," said Beatrice, "that you will find other voices than your own lifted in decrying money and money making; I believe, also, that you will find that the owners of the voices are either miserable failures or are still putting in their spare time grabbing for what nickels they can get."
Steele laughed.
"Money's all right," he answered. "Why, I am always chasing the rolling discs and find it one of the best sports a man can devise. Only it doesn't happen to be the whole game. I just made a goodly pile down in Mexico myself, tried to double it speculating, slipped up and went broke, and now what am I doing? Why, trying for another pile! Great little game, Trixie, great little game! But, Lord! there's another thing or two!"
It seemed to her that that "Trixie" just slipped out without intention and without Steele's consciousness of it. She wished that she knew. She decided quickly not to notice it.
"You made your money mining, I suppose?" she offered.
"Sure thing. That's the only right way … go find it and take it. I'd done it before; I'll do it again. But the trouble is," and a cheery grin accompanied the words, "I always go busted again."
"Speculating?"
"Who's playing at representing the press now?" he challenged brightly. "Sure; bucking the other man's game. You juggle with stocks, don't you? Yes, and get richer all the time. I monkey with them and go back to work. Moral: having got my fingers burnt two or three times I now know enough to keep them out of the fire. Next wad I keep."
"It is some mining matter which brings you up into these mountains?"
"First thing," he said, frankly dodging her direct question, "I'm up here to have a good time. I'm off into the woods for a spell to eat my own cooking over my own fire, to sleep under the stars, to rampse around with plenty of elbow room and nobody to listen if I want to turn loose my voice and sing. I'm taking a vacation. Next thing, I want to grab some land and build me a cabin. After that … we'll see what we see."
What Beatrice Corliss saw and saw clearly was that he was a man who could keep his own counsel if it pleased him. If he had some knowledge or dream of gold hereabouts he would keep the matter to himself until he saw fit to divulge it. She waited for him to go on.
"When I asked you about your acreage in the vicinity of Hell's Goblet," he resumed, "I was talking business. I've been in that country. I know it rather well. I want it. I'll take a section off your hands there for twenty dollars the acre. Are you on?"
"I think I am," she smiled back at him. "Decidedly on, as you put it." She scribbled a note upon a pad in front of her. "I'll have Hurley send some men over to prospect that country again. Thank you."
"They've combed it many a time," said Steele, evenly. "That land is lying idle now; you don't even run stock on it to make it worth your while. There's big timber in there, but it's hard to get out. I want it. What's the word? Twelve thousand eight hundred dollars, spot cash, for the section about Hell's Goblet."
She noted in his eyes an expression to which she had no key. For answer she returned him a cool look while she thought. He was offering twice the price which such land would bring on the open market. She was not asking herself why; rather, what she sought to imagine was just where in that square mile of rugged land the gold lay.
"As I told you before," she said after a little pause, "the land is not for sale."
"That means that my bid isn't high enough. What do you want for it?"
"It is not for sale."
"Ben Corliss' girl up and down," chuckled Steele. "Well, well, we won't fight over it. But you see I mean to have that section, and I wanted your good will to go with it. Oh, I like a good scrap as much as the next fellow, but I don't hanker after bad blood between neighbours. Come ahead, be a sport; you don't need that land, you've got land enough, money enough without it. You'd never miss it. Better give in gracefully. I'm going to have it, anyway, you know."
In spite of her determination to appear unruffled this man angered her more than any other man she had ever known. Having given over making fun of her he now had the assurance to inform her coolly that in spite of her he meant to have a square mile of her mountain lands! Obviously he was talking sheer nonsense. And yet his manner, rather than an absurd statement, for the second time that day drove a hot flush up into her cheeks. It is one thing to guard one's temper, another to hold it securely in check in the face of such provocation.
"Do you expect me to continue to listen to such ridiculous talk, Mr. Steele?" she asked sharply.
"It's not ridiculous by a jug full," he told her, his eyes twinkling. "Remember that after all you're just a little girl who doesn't know all of the simple facts of the universe. Oh, you're as sharp as tacks, I'll admit, but you're bright and new and haven't explored all of the dark corners. Now listen a minute and I'll be clearing out: I'm going to have that little chunk of land with all the water, dirt, rocks, trees and brush that go with it. And I want you to know at the jump that I wouldn't take it if you needed it. You're rich without it, got more millions right now than I have thousands. If you were down on the rocks I wouldn't take a penny off you. But your queenly affluence make this a different proposition."
"Once and for all I'm not going to sell. And," her eyes growing as hard as Corliss eyes could grow as she sprang to her feet, "I'll sell to any man in the world for ten cents an acre rather than to you at twenty dollars! I think that this ends our talk, Mr. Steele?"
"I liked you better while the queen was away," said Steele. "You have got the makings of a first class girl in you … if you ever wake up to it. Say, I'm going to get my cabin started within a week or so. That's a promise. Suppose you ride out to see me and spend an afternoon? I'll show you how to do a lot of things you don't know beans about; how to make a fire, how to cook over it, how to take a trout, how to live, by thunder! It's lots of fun living … just living!"
"When you