[Gutenberg 30574] • Shadow Mountain

Wiley Homan has a business plan for Virginia, a waitress and the daughter of the same man whom his own father had robbed once. Naturally, Homan's return to the Death Valley sounds alarm bells all over the decrepit mining town and Virginia cannot believe that he is up to any good. To add to the mystery, there is also a slight possibility that Virginia's father did not die as she was led to believe. But what does Homan wants from her? Where is her father?

Excerpt

She showed him into the spacious dining room, Where the Colonel had once presided in state, and hurried into the kitchen. The young man gazed after her, looked swiftly about the room and backed away towards the door; then his strong jaw closed down, he smiled grimly to himself and sat down unbidden at a table. The table was mahogany and, in a case against the wall, there was a scant display Of cut glass; but the linen was worn thin and the expensive velvet carpet had been ruined by hob nailed boots. Heavy workingmen's dishes lay on the tables, the plating was Worn from the knives, and the last echoing ghost of vanished gentility was dispelled by a voice from the kitchen. It was the Widow Huff, once the first lady Of Keno, but now a boarding-house cook.