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 get a cabin builded on the Goblet section," said Miss Corliss, looking him steadily in the eye, "I'll come and spend an afternoon cooking for you. That is another promise! In the meantime I am giving strict orders that trespassers on my land will receive all of the attention which they have a right to expect at the hands of the law."
"Good!" cried Steele. "I'll be going now. And, remember, I'll look for you within three or four weeks. I'll rush work on the cabin. And, say: make them quit calling you the Queen. That sort of stuff cheapens you. You're too nice a girl to stand for a baby make-believe game like that. Show the bunch that, even if you haven't got the most amiable disposition in the world and even if you're not as pretty as some others, there's something to you besides your dad's money. Come out of the ice box and use your dimples a little. … You just keep in touch with me and I'll make life worth while for you."
"You are very kind, Mr. Steele," said the girl, her pulses hammering, her voice low in her throat with the constraint she put upon herself.
"Not at all," laughed Steele. "Only you see I'm not in love with you, I'm not planning to fall for your quaint charm, I'm not trying to curry favour for any reason in the world. So I can talk to you straight out! It's good for your soul to have a man like me around. Good-bye, Neighbour."
She did not move as she watched Bill Steele, the most maddening of men she had ever met, go out. As he strode down the veranda he was humming and snatches of the little song, the most maddening of songs, came back to her in his rich untrained voice; it was La Donna e mobile.
"Ugh!" said Beatrice Corliss. "The brute!"
CHAPTER IV
INTO THE WILDERNESS
BEATRICE CORLISS, when Steele had gone down the mountain roadway to the stable for his horse, turned back to her office table. The man's word of what he meant to do was of course, like the man himself, absurd. A big block of land was not to be stolen as though it were a pocket handkerchief. Still her eyes were frowning. His air of cheerful certainty was disquieting despite her conviction that he could do nothing. His voice had rung with a seemingly outspoken sincerity which troubled and puzzled her.
For perhaps fifteen minutes she sat before her table motionless, seeking to explain to herself the purpose of Steele's empty vaunt. If his own account of himself were truthful and he was a mining
