the Widow, brushing Virginia away again and swaggering up to his bed. “I thought you and Blount were good friends.”
“Yeh, guess again,” replied Wiley grimly. “I’ll tell him the mine shows up fine.”
“Well, it does!” she asserted. “The Colonel said it wasn’t scratched. And didn’t you steal that piece of quartz from Virginia? Oh, you gave it back, eh? Well, how did it assay? I know you found somethingpretty good!”
“How could I give it back, if I’d had it assayed?” asked Wiley with compelling calm.
“Well what didyou come back for?” demanded the Widow, triumphantly. “You must have figured to win somewhere.”
“Yes, I did,” sighed Wiley, “but I was badly mistaken. All I want now is to get out of town.”
“Well, how about your father? That offer he made me! Has he backed out on that, too?”
“No, he hasn’t,” answered Wiley, “my father keeps his word. You can get your money any time.”
“Well, of all the crazy crooked deals,” the Widow began to rave, and then Wiley grabbed for the shotgun.
“It may be crazy!” he shouted savagely, “but believe me, it isn’t crooked. My father never did a crooked thing in his life, and you know it as well as I do; and if it wasn’t that you’re such a crook yourself─”
“Wiley Holman!” raged the Widow, but he rose up on his crutch and shouldered his way out the door.
“You’re crazy!” he yelled, “the whole danged town’s crazy. All except old Charley and me.”
He jerked his head and winked at Charley as he hobbled towards the street and Death Valley nodded gravely. There was a long, hateful silence; then the great motor roared out and the white racer rushed away across the desert.
“Well, I don’t care!” declared the Widow as she gazed after his dust and when the stage went out that day it took a lady passenger to Vegas.
CHAPTER VII
Between Friends
The madness of the Widow and Old Charley and Stiff Neck George was no mystery to Wiley Holman–it was the same form of mania which he encountered everywhere when he went to see men who owned mines. If he offered them a million for a ten-foot hole they would refuse it and demand ten million more, and if he offered them nothing they immediately scented a conspiracy to starve them out and gain possession of their mine. It was the illusion of hidden wealth, of buried treasure, which keeps half the mines in the West closed down and half of the rest in litigation; except that in Keno it seemed to be associated with gun-plays and a marked tendency towards homicide. So, upon his return from a short stay in the hospital he came up the main street silently, then stepped on the throttle and went through town a-smoking. But the Widow was out waiting for him in the middle of the road and, rather than run her down, he threw on both brakes and stopped.
“Well, what now?” he inquired, frowning at the odor of heated rubber. “What’s your particular grievance this trip?” He regarded her coldly, then bowed to Virginia and waved a friendly hand at Charley. “Hello, there, Death Valley,” he called out jovially, as the Widow choked with a rush of words, “what’s the news from the Funeral Range?”
“Now, here!” exclaimed the Widow, advancing from the dust cloud, and glancing into the machine. “I want you to bring back that gun!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Huff,” he replied with finality, “but you’ll have to get along without it. I turned it over to the sheriff, along with three buckshot and an affidavit regarding the shooting─”
“What, you great, big coward!” stormed the Widow in a fury. “Did you run and complain to the sheriff?”
“No, I walked,” said Wiley, “and on one leg at that. But I might as well warn you that next time you make a gun-play you’re likely to break into jail.”
“You’re a coward!” she taunted. “You’re standing in with Blount to beat me out of my mine. First you sneak off with my gun, so I can’t protect my rights, and then Stiff Neck George comes up and jumps the Paymaster!”
“The hell!” burst out Wiley, rising up in his seat and looking across at the mine.
“Yes, the hell,” she returned, “and he’s warned off all comers and is holding the mine for Blount!”
“For Blount!” he echoed and, seeing him roused at last, the Widow became subtly provocative.
“For Samuel J. Blount,” she repeated impressively. “He–he’s got all my stock on a loan.”
“Oh!” observed Wiley, and as she raved on with her story he rubbed his chin in deep thought.
“Yes, I went down to see him and he wouldn’t buy it, so I left it as collateral on a loan. And then he came out here and looked over the mine again and told Stiff Neck George to stand guard. They’re fixing to pump out the water.”
“Oho!” exclaimed Wiley, and his eyes began to kindle as he realized what Blount had done. Then reaching for the pistol that lay handy beside his leg, he leapt out with waspish quickness, only to stop short as he hurt his lame foot.
“Go on!” hissed the Widow, advancing to his shoulder and pointing the way up the trail. “He stays right there by the dump. The mine is yours; go put him off–I would, if I had my gun.”
“Aw, pfooey!” he exclaimed, suddenly turning back and clamoring into his seat. “I’ve got one game leg already. Let ’im have the doggoned mine.”
“What? Are you going to back out? Well, you are a good one–and it stands in your name, this minute!”
“Yes, and it isn’t worth–that!” he said with conviction, and snapped his finger in the air. “He can have it. You can tell Blount, the next time you see him, he can buy in that tax title for the costs.”
He paused and muttered angrily, gazing off towards the dump where crooked-necked George stood guard, and then he hopped out to crank up.
“Want a ride?” he asked, as he saw Virginia watching him and she hesitated and shook her head. “Come on,” he smiled, casting aside his black mood, “let’s take a little spin–just down on the desert and back. What’s going on–getting ready to move?”
He gazed with alarm at a pile of packing boxes that the Widow had marshaled on the gallery and then he looked back at Virginia. She was attired in a gown that had been very chic in the fall of nineteen ten, but, though it was scant for these bouffant days, she was the old Virginia still–slim and strong and dainty, and highbred in every line, with dark eyes that mirrored passing thoughts. She was the Virginia he had played with when Keno was booming and his own sisters had been there for company; and now after ten years he remembered the time when he had asked her, in vain, for a kiss.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” he said at last and Virginia stepped into the racer.
“Virginia!” reminded the Widow, and then at a glance she turned round and flung into the house. There were times and occasions when she had found it safer not to press her maternal authority too far, and the look that she received was first notice from Virginia that such an occasion had arrived.
