t and went back to bed but something
drew him back to the 'phone. He held down the hook and, with the
receiver to his ear, let the lever rise slowly up. There was talking
going on and men laughing in hoarse voices and the tramp of feet to and
fro, but no one responded to his shouts. He hung up once more and then
suddenly it came over him, a foreboding of impending disaster. Something
was wrong, something big that must be stopped at once; and a voice
called insistently for action. He leapt into his clothes and started for
the door--then turned back and strapped on his pistol. As the sun rose
up he was a speck in the desert, rushing on through a blood-red sea.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE THUNDER CLAP

The broad streets of Vegas were swarming with traffic as Wiley glided
swiftly into town and he noticed that people looked at him curiously.
Perhaps it was all imagination but it seemed to him they eyed him
coldly. Yet what they thought or felt was nothing to him then--his
business was with Samuel J. Blount. The mine was unprotected--he had
not even told his foreman that he was leaving, or where he was
going--and there was no time for anything but business. If there was
any trouble for him, Samuel J. Blount was at the bottom of it, and he
drove straight up to the bank. It was a huge, granite structure with
massive onyx pillars and smiling young clerks at the grilles; but he
hurried past them all and turned down a hall to a room that was
marked: President--Private. This was no time for dallying or sending
in cards--he opened the door and stepped in.

Samuel Blount was sitting at the head of a table with other men grouped
about him, but as Wiley Holman entered they were silent. He glanced at
Blount and then again at the men--they were the directors of the
Paymaster Mining and Milling Company!

"Good morning, Mr. Holman," spoke up Blount with asperity. "Please wait
for me out in the hall."

"Since when?" retorted Wiley and then, leaping to the point, "what about
that deed to the Paymaster?"

"Why--you must be misinformed," replied Blount slowly, at the same time
pressing a button, "this is a meeting of the Board of Directors."

"So I see," returned Wiley, "but I sent the money by Virginia to take up
the option on the mine. Did you receive it or did you not?"

A broad-shouldered man, very narrow between the eyes, came in and stood
close to Wiley, and Blount smiled and cleared his throat.

"No," he said, "we did not re