"That was Stiff Neck George," observed Charley mysteriously. "He's guarding the Paymaster for Blount."

"Who--that fellow that was after me?" burst out Wiley in a pa.s.sion as he hobbled off down the trail. "What the h.e.l.l was he trying to do? The whole rotten mine isn't worth stealing from anybody. What's the matter with you people--are you crazy?"

"Well, that's all right!" returned the Widow from the darkness. "You can't sneak in and jump _my_ mine!"

"_Your_ mine, you old tarrier!" yelled Wiley furiously. "You'd better go to town and look it up. The whole danged works is mine--I bought it in for taxes!"

"You--what?" cried the Widow, brushing Virginia and Charley aside and halting him in the trail. "You bought the Paymaster for _taxes_!"

"Yes, for taxes," answered Wiley, "and got stung at that! Gimme eighty-three dollars and forty-one cents and you can have it back, with costs. But now listen, you old battle-ax; I've taken enough off of you. You went up on my property when I was making an inspection of it and made an attempt on my life; and if I hear a peep out of you, from this time on, I'll go down and swear out a warrant."

"I didn't aim to kill you," defended the Widow, weakly. "I just tried to shoot you in the leg."

"Well, you did it," returned Wiley, and, pushing; her aside, he limped on down the trail. The Widow followed meekly, talking in low tones with her daughter, and at last Virginia came up beside him.

"Take him right to our house," she said to Charley, "and I'll nurse him until he gets well."

"No, you take me to the Holman house!" directed Wiley, obstinately. "I guess we've got a house of our own."

"Well, suit yourself," she murmured, and fell back to the rear while Wiley went hobbling on. At every step he jabbed the muzzle of the shotgun vindictively into the ground, but as he reached the flat and met a posse of citizens, he submitted to being carried on a door. The first pain had pa.s.sed and a deadly numbness seemed to take the place of its bite; but as he moved his stiffened muscles, which were beginning to ache and throb, he realized that he was badly hurt. With a leg like that he could not drive out across the desert, seventy-four long miles to Vegas; nor would he, on the other hand, find the best of accommodations in the deserted house of his father. It had been a great home in its day, but that day was past, and the water connections too, and somebody must be handy to wait on him.

"Say," he said, turning to Death Valley Charley, "have you got a house here in town? Well, take me to it and I'll pay you well, and for anything else that you do."

"It won't cost you nothing," answered Charley quickly. "I used to know your father."

"Well, you knew a good man then," replied Wiley grimly, but Death Valley did not respond. The Widow Huff was listening behind; and besides, he had his doubts.

"I'll run on ahead," said Charley noncommittally, and when Wiley arrived a canvas cot was waiting for him, fully equipped except for the sheets.

Virginia came in later with a pair on her arm, and after a look at Charley's greasy blankets Wiley allowed her to spread them on the bed.

Then, as Death Valley laid a grimy paw on his leg and began to pick out the shot Wiley jerked away and asked Virginia impatiently if she didn't have a little carbolic.

"Aw, he'll be all right," protested Charley cheerfully, as Virginia pushed him aside; "them buckshot won't hurt him much, nohow. Jest put on some pine pitch and a chew of tobacco and he'll fall off to sleep like a child."

He stood blinking helplessly as Virginia heated some water and poured in a teaspoonful of carbolic, then as she bathed the wounds and picked out the last shot, Charley placed a disc on his phonograph.

"Does he want some music?" he inquired of Heine, who was sitting up and begging, but Virginia put down her foot. "No, Charley," she said with a forbidding frown, "you go ask mother for a needle and thread."

"He's kind of crazy to-night," she whispered to Wiley, when Death Valley was safely out of sight, "you'd better come over to the house."

"Huh, I guess we're all crazy," answered Wiley, laughing shortly. "I can stand it--but how does he act?"

"Oh, he hears things--and gets messages--and talks about Death Valley.

He got lost over there, three years ago last August, and the heat kind of cooked his brains. He heard your automobile, when you came back to-night--that's why mother and all the rest of them went over to the mine to get you. I'm sorry she shot you up."

"Well, don't you care," he said rea.s.suringly. "But she sure overplayed her hand."

"Yes, she did," acknowledged Virginia, trying not to quarrel with her patient, "but, of course, she didn't know about that tax sale."

"Well, she knows it now," he answered pointedly, and when Charley came back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine.

That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative--and brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit.

The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other Paymasters--only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.

"I heard you," he said, "I heard you coming--away up there in the pa.s.s.

Chuh, chuh, chuh, chud, chud, chud, chud; and I told Virginny you was coming."

"Yes, I heard about it," answered Wiley sourly, "and then you told the Widow."

"Oh, no, I didn't!" exulted Charley. "She'd've killed you, sure as shooting. I just told Virginny, that's all."

"Oh!" observed Wiley, and lay so still that Charley regarded him intently. His eyes were blue and staring like a newborn babe's, but behind their look of childlike innocence there lurked a crafty smile.

"I told her," went on Charley, "that you was coming to git her and take her away in your auto. She's a nice girl, Virginny, and never rode in one of them things--I never thought you'd try to steal her mine."

"I did not!" denied Wiley, but Death Valley only smiled and waved the matter aside.

"Never mind," he said, "they're all crazy, anyhow. They get that way every north wind. I'm here to take care of them--the Colonel asked me to, and keep people from stealing his mine. It's electricity that does it--it's about us everywhere--and that's what makes 'em crazy; but electricity is my servant; I bend it to my will; that's how I come to hear you. I heard you coming back, away out on the desert, and I knowed your heart wasn't right. You was coming back to rob the Colonel of his mine; and the Colonel, he saved my life once. He ain't dead, you know, he's over across Death Valley in them mountains they call the Ube-Hebes.

Yes, I was lost on the desert and he followed my tracks and found me, running wild through the sand-hills; and then Virginia and Mrs. Huff, they looked after me until my health returned."

"You can hear pretty well, then," suggested Wiley diplomatically. "You must know everything that goes on."

"It's the electricity!" declared Charley. "It's about us everywhere, and that's what makes them crazy. All these desert rats are crazy, it's the electric storms that does it--Nevada is a great state for winds. But when they comes a sandstorm, and Mrs. Huff she wraps up her head, I feel the power coming on. I can hear far away and then I can hear close--I make the electricity my slave. But the rest, they go crazy; they have headaches and megrims, and Mrs. Huff she always wants to fight; but I'm here to take care of 'em--the Colonel asked me to, so you keep away from that mine."

"Oh, sure," responded Wiley, "I won't bother the mine. As soon as I'm well I'll go home."

"No, you stay," returned Charley, becoming suddenly confidential.

"I'll show you a mountain of gold. It's over across Death Valley, in the Ube-Hebes; the Colonel is over there now."

"Is that so?" inquired Wiley, and Charley looked at him strangely, as if dazed.

"Aw, no; of course not!" he burst out angrily. "I forgot--the Colonel is dead. You Heine; come over here, sir."

Heine crept up unwillingly and Charley slapped him. "Now--shut up!" he admonished and went off into crazy mutterings.

"What's that?" he cried, rousing up suddenly to listen, and a savage look replaced the blank stare. "Can't you hear him?" he asked. "It's Stiff Neck George--he's coming up the alley to kill you. Here, take my gun; and when he opens the door you fill him full of holes!"

Wiley listened intently, then he reached for the heavy pistol and sat up, watching the door. The wind soughed and howled and rattled at the windows, over which Charley had stretched heavy blankets, and it seemed to his startled imagination that someone was groping at the door. The memory of the skulking form that had followed him rose up with the distinctness of a vision and at a knock on the door he c.o.c.ked his pistol and beckoned Death Valley to one side.

"Come in!" he called, but as the door swung open it was Virginia who stood facing his gun.

"O--oh!" she screamed, and then she flushed angrily as Charley began to laugh.

"Well, laugh then, you fool," she said to Wiley, "and when you're through, just look at this that we found!"

She held up the ore-bag that Wiley had lost and strode dramatically in.

"Look at that!" she cried, and strewing the white quartz on the table she pointed her finger in his face. "You stole my specimen!" she cried accusingly. "That's why you came back for more. But you give it back to me--I want it this minute. I see you're honest--like your father!"

She spat it out venomously, more venomously than was needful, for he was already fumbling for the rock; and when he gave it back he smiled over-scornfully and his lower lip mounted up.