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Updated: June 27, 2025
He gave it up; but there was a way of knowing he could call out that smile again. The idle women of the Gunsight Hotel, sitting in their rockers on the upper porch, were rewarded on that day for many a wasted hour. For long months they had watched McBain's typist, with her proud way of ignoring them all; and at last they had something to talk about.
But Whitney H. Stoddard, besides running a railroad and a few subsidiary companies as well, was not so busy; he had plenty of time to come to Gunsight and to lay out a carefully planned program. As his supposed friend, the mysterious Mrs. Hardesty, had remarked once upon a time: he was a very thorough man, and very successful.
He sat in gloomy silence as the Gunsight justice of the peace went through the formalities of a preliminary examination and then, while they waited for the next train to Geronimo, he and the deputy dropped in on Mary Fortune. "Good morning," he said, flushing up as she looked at him, "can you spare me a few minutes of your time?"
They drove toward the enemy cruiser at top speed, swerving in a great arc as the sun pulled at them. The enemy’s big boat was out of the ship, its jets firing as it started for the asteroid. Rip leaned over his illuminated gunsight. The boat showed up clearly, the rings of the sight framing it. He estimated distance and the pull of the sun, then squeezed the trigger on the speed control handle.
He was master of Gunsight yet, though all his money had vanished and his credit would buy nothing but the drinks. "Well, what d'ye know about that?" observed Hassayamp meditatively. "By George, sometimes I almost think that boy is right!" He cleared his throat and hobbled towards the door and the crowd took the hint to disperse.
As for the men of the hotel, the susceptible young mining men who passed to and fro from Gunsight, they found her pleasant, but not quite what they had expected not quite what Dame Rumor had painted her. They watched her from the distance, for she was undeniably goodlooking and so did the women upstairs.
He slipped out of town with a mysterious swiftness that baffled certain officers of the court, but, though Jepson watched the trains in something approaching a panic, he did not drop off at Gunsight. Mary Fortune watched the trains, too, though with different motives and hopes, and when the last day dawned and no Rimrock appeared she went off by herself on the desert.
The peace of midday lay upon Gunsight, broken only by the distant chang, chang of bells as a ten-mule ore-team came toiling in from the mines. In the cool depths of the umbrella tree in front of the Company's office a Mexican ground-dove crooned endlessly his ancient song of love, but Gunsight took no notice. Its thoughts were not of love but of money.
So honest John Galler's famous placer mine still remains in the great list of lost mines, like the Gunsight Lead and other noted mines for which men have since prospected in vain.
In the Gunsight Hotel where the officials of the Company left their women-folks to idle and fret and gossip, there was a restless flash of white from the upper veranda; and in the office below Andrew McBain, the aggressive President of the Gunsight Mining and Developing Company, paced nervously to and fro as he dictated letters to a typist.
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