It stretched on endlessly, this road across the desert, as straight as a surveyor's line, and as they cleared the rough gulches and glided down into its immensity Virginia glanced at the desert and sighed.

"Pretty big," he suggested and as she nodded slowly he raised his eyes to the hills. "I don't know," he went on, "whether you'll like Los Angeles. You'll get lonely for this, sometimes."

"Yes, but not for that"--she jerked a thumb back at Keno--"that place is pretty small. What's left, of course; but it seems to me sometimes they're all of them lame, halt and blind. Always quarreling and backbiting and jumping each other's claims--but--what do you think of the Paymaster?"

She shot the question at him and it occurred suddenly to Wiley that perhaps she had a programme, too.

"Well, I'll tell you," he began, deftly changing his ground, "I'm in Dutch on that, all around. When I came home full of buckshot and the Old Man heard about it I got my orders to come back and apologize. Well, I'll do that--to you--and you can tell your mother I'm sure sorry I went up on that dump."

He grinned and motioned to his injured foot, but Virginia was in no mood for a joke.

"That's all right," she said, "and I accept your apology--though I don't know exactly what it's for. But I asked your opinion of the Paymaster."

"Oh, yes," he replied and then he began to temporize. "You'd better tell me what you want it for, first."

"What? Do you have one opinion for one set of people and another for somebody else? I thought!"---- She paused and the hot blood leapt to her cheeks as she saw where her temper had led her. "Well," she explained, "I've got a few shares of stock."

She said it quietly and the suggestion of scolding gave way to a chastened appeal. She remembered--and he sensed it--that winged shaft which he had flung back when she had said he was honest, like his father. He had told her then she was becoming like her mother, and Virginia could never endure that.

"Ah, I see," he answered and went on hurriedly with a new note of friendliness in his voice. "Well, I'll tell you, Virginia, if it will be any accommodation to you I'll take over that stock myself. But--well, I hate to advise you--because--how many shares have you got?"

"Oh, several thousand," she responded casually. "They were given to me by father--and by different men that I've helped. Mr. Masters, you know, that I took care of for a while, he gave me all he had when he died. But I don't want to sell them--I know there's no market, because Blount wouldn't give Mother anything--but if he should happen to strike something----"

She glanced across at him swiftly but Wiley's face was grim.

"Yes, _him_ find anything!" he jeered. "That fat-headed old tub! He knows about as much about mining as a hog does about the precession of the equinox. No; miracles may happen but, short of that, he'll never get back a cent!"

"No, but Wiley," she protested, "you know as well as I do that the Paymaster isn't worked out. Now what's to prevent my stock becoming valuable sometime when they open it up?"

"What's to prevent?" he repeated. "Well, I'll tell you what. If Blount makes a strike he'll close that mine down and send the company through bankruptcy. Then he'll buy the mine back on a judgment and you'll be left without a cent."

"But what about you?" she suggested shrewdly. "Will you let him serve _you_ like that?"

"Don't you think it!" he answered. "I know him too well--my money is somewhere else."

"But if you should buy the mine?"

"Well----" he stirred uneasily and then shot his machine ahead--"I haven't bought it yet."

"No, but you offered to, and I don't see why----"

"Do you want to sell your stock?" he asked abruptly and she flushed and shook her head. "Well!" he said and without further comment he slowed down and swung about.

"Oh, dear," she sighed, as they started back and he turned upon her swiftly.

"Do you know why I wouldn't have that mine," he inquired, "if you'd hand it to me as a gift? It's because of this everlasting fight. I own it, right now, if anybody does, and I've never been down the shaft. Now suppose I'd go over there and shoot it out with George and get possession of my mine. First Blount would come up with some other hired man-killer and I'd have a bout with him; and then your respected mother----"

"Now you hush up!" she chided and he closed down his jaw like a steel-trap. She watched him covertly, then her eyes began to blink and she turned her head away. The desert rushed by them, worlds of waxy green creosote bushes and white, gnarly clumps of salt bush; and straight ahead, frowning down on the forgotten city, rose the black cloud-shadow of Shadow Mountain.

"Oh, turn off here!" she cried, impulsively as they came to a fork in the road and, plowing up the sand, he skidded around a curve and struck off up the Death Valley road. They came together at the edge of the town--the long, straight road to the south, and the road-trail that led west into the silence. There were no tracks in it now but the flat hoof-prints of burros and the wire-twined wheel-marks of desert buckboards; even the road was half obliterated by the swoop of the winds which had torn up the hard-packed dirt, yet the going was good and as the racer purred on Virginia settled back in her seat.

"I can't believe it," she said at last, "that we're going to leave here, forever. This is the road that Father took when he left home that last time--have you ever been over into Death Valley? It's a great, big sink, all white with salt and borax; and at the upper end, where he went across, there are miles and miles of sand-hills. He's buried out there somewhere, and the hills have covered him--but oh, it's so awful lonesome!"

She turned away again and as her head went down Wiley stared straight ahead and blinked. He had known the Colonel and loved him well, and his father had loved him, too; but that rift had come between them and until it was healed he could never be a friend of Virginia's. She distrusted him in everything--in his silence and in his speech, his laughter and his anger, in his evasions and when he talked straight--it was better to say nothing now. He had intended to help her, to offer her money or any a.s.sistance he could give; but her heart was turned against him and the most he could hope for was to get back to Keno without a quarrel. The divide was far ahead, where the road struck the pa.s.s and swung over and down into the Great Valley; and, glancing up at the sun, he turned around slowly and rumbled back into town. Shadow Mountain rose before them; it towered above the valley like a brooding image of hate but as he smiled farewell at the sad-eyed Virginia something moved him to take her hand.

"Good-by," he said, "you'll be gone when I come back. But if you get into trouble--let me know."

He gave her hand a squeeze and Virginia looked at him sharply, then she let her dark lashes droop.

"I'm in trouble now," she said at last. "What good did it do to tell you?"

He winced and shrugged his shoulders, then gazed at her again with a challenge in his eyes.

"If you'd trust _me_ more," he said very slowly, "perhaps I'd trust _you_ more. What is it you want me to do?"

"I want you to answer me--yes or no. Shall I keep my stock, or sell it?"

"You keep it," he answered, and avoided her eye until she climbed out and entered the house.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TIP

"Well?" inquired the Widow as her daughter came back from her ride with Wiley Holman; but Virginia was not giving out confidences. At last, and by a trick, she had surprised the truth from Wiley and he had told her to keep her stock. For weeks, for months, he had told her and everybody else that the Paymaster was not worth having; but when she had drooped her lashes and asked him for his opinion he had told her not to sell.

Not hesitatingly nor doubtfully, or with any crafty intent; but honestly, as a friend, perhaps as a lover--and then he had looked away.

He knew, of course, how his past actions must appear in the light of this later advice; but he had told her the truth and gone. The question was: What should she do?

Virginia returned to her room and locked the door while her mother stormed around outside and at last she came to a decision. What Wiley had told her had been said in strictest confidence and it would not be fair to pa.s.s it on; but if he advised her not to sell he had a reason for his advice, and that reason was not far to find. It was in that white stone that he had stolen from her collection, and in the white quartz he had gathered from the dump. He claimed, of course, that he had not had her specimen a.s.sayed; but why, then, had he come back for more?

And why had he been so careful to tell her and everyone that he would not take the Paymaster as a gift? As a matter of fact, he owned it that minute by virtue of his delinquent tax-sale, and his goings and comings had been nicely timed to enable him to keep track of his property. He was shrewd, that was all, but now she could read him; for he had spoken, for once, from his heart.

The mail that night bore a sample of white quartz to a custom a.s.sayer in Vegas, but Virginia guarded her secret well. She had gained it by wiles that were not absolutely straight-forward, in that she had squeezed Wiley's hand in return, and since by so doing she had compromised with her conscience she placated it by withholding the great news. If she told her mother she would create a scene with Blount and demand the return of her stock; and the secret would get out and everybody would be buying stock and Wiley would blame it on her. No, everything must be kept dark and she mailed her sample when even the postmistress was gone.

Perhaps Wiley was right in his extreme subterfuges and in always covering up his hand, but she would show him that there were others just as smart. She would take a leaf from his book and play a lone hand, too; only now, of course, she could not leave town.

"Virginia!" scolded the Widow, when for the hundredth time she had discovered her dawdling at her packing. "If you don't get up and come and help me this minute I'll unpack and let you go alone."

"Well, let's both unpack," said Virginia thoughtfully, and the Widow sat down with a crash.

"I knew it!" she cried. "Ever since that Wiley Holman----"

"Now, you hush up!" returned Virginia, flushing angrily. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Well, if I don't know I can guess; but I never thought a Huff----"

"Oh, you make me tired!" exclaimed Virginia, spitefully. "I'm staying here to watch that mine."