Phoenix tribune., 1922-12-30

ingredients, after all, to success. He
finished the last line looked at the list
IF officers, and gasped.
For there, following one another,
were three names, two of which Fair
child had expected. But the other
They were, president and general
manager, r. B. (Squint) Rodaine;
secretary-treasurer, Maurice Rodalne:
and first vice president-Miss Anita
Natalie Richmond!
After that Fairchild heard little
that Harry said as he rambled on
about plans for the future He sat and
stared, until finally his partner said
goodnight and left the room.
That name could mean only one
thing: that she had consented to be-
come partner with them, that they
had won her over after ALL Now,
even different light came upon the
meeting with Barnham in Denver and
a different view to Fairchild What
If she had been playing their game all
along? What If she had been merely
tool for them; what If she had sent
Farrell at their direction, to learn
everything he and Harry knew? Had
not another lawyer played the friend.
ship racket, in an effort to buy the
Blue Poppy mine?
And here Fairchild smiled grimly.
From the present prospects, it would
seem that the gain would have been
all on his side, for certainly there was
little to show now toward a possibility
of the Blue Poppy ever being worth
anything near the figure which he had
been offered for 1t. And yet, if that
offer had not been made as some sort
OF stiletto jest why had it been made
at all? Was it because Rodaine knew
that wealth did lie concealed there?
Fairchild suddenly took hope. He
clenched his hands and he spoke, to
himself, to the darkness and to the
spirits of encouragement that were all
about him:
If it's there, we'll find tiff we
have to. work our fingers to the bone,
If we have to 5tarve and die there
We'll find it |"
With that determination, he went to
bed, to awake in the morning filled
with a desire to reach the mine. to
claw at its vitals with the sharp
edged drills, to swing the heavy sledge
until his shoulders and back aehed
to send the roaring charges of dyna-
mite digging deeper and deeper into
that thinning vein. And Harry was
beside him every step Of the way.
A days work, the booming charges
and they returned to the stope to find
that the vein had neither lessened nor
grown greater. Another day-and one
after that. The vein remained the
same.
Squint Rodaine had established his
office in small, vacant store building
on the main street, and Fairchild
could see, as he went to and from his
work, a constant stream of townspeo-
pie as they made that their goal
there to give-their money into the
keeping of the be-scarred man and to
thaSt W bnC lQIuIC LUZ W6tlIu. III
CALLED Fairchild, it made his hate
stronger than ever. AS for the girl
who was named as vice president
He saw her, day after day, riding
through town In the same automobile
that he had helped retire on the Den
yer road. But now she did not look
at him; now she pretended that she
did not see him. She had gone over
to the Rodaines, she was engaged to
marry the chalky-faced, hook-nosed
son and she was vice president Of
their two-million-dollar mining cor
poration. Fairchild did not even strive
to find meaning for it all; women
are women, and men do wei some
times If they diagnose themselves.
The summer began to grow old, and
Fairchild felt that he was aging with
1t. The bank deposits were thinning,
and the vein was thinning with it.
Slowly but surely, as they fought, the
strip Of pay ore in the rocks was