"Have a drink?"

"I'll wait," said Bostwick, "till we can drink a toast to the 'Laughing Water' claim."

McCoppet opened the door, waved Bostwick into the crowded gaming room, and was about to follow when his roving gaze abruptly lighted on a figure in the place--a swarthy, half-breed Piute Indian, standing in front of the wheel and roulette layout.

Quickly stepping back inside the smaller apartment, the gambler pulled down his hat. His face was the color of ashes.

"So long. See you later," he murmured, and he closed the door without a sound.

Bostwick, wholly at a loss to understand his sudden dismissal, lingered for a moment only in the place, then made his way out to the street, and went to the postoffice, where he found a letter from Glenmore Kent.

Intent upon securing the needed funds from Beth with the smallest possible delay, he dropped the letter, unread, in his pocket and headed for the house where Beth was living. He walked, however, no more than half a block before he altered his mind. Pausing for a moment on the sidewalk, he turned on his heel and went briskly to his own apartments, where he performed an unusual feat.

First he read the letter from Kent. It was dated from the newest camp in the desert and was filled with glittering generalities concerning riches about to be discovered. It urged him, in case he had arrived in Goldite, to hasten southward forthwith--"and bring a bunch of money."

Glenmore's letters always appealed for money--a fact which Bostwick had remembered.

The man sat down at his table and wrote a letter to himself. With young Kent's epistle for his model, he made an amazingly clever forgery of the enthusiastic writer's chirography, and at the bottom signed the young man's name.

This spurious doc.u.ment teemed with figures and a.s.sertions concerning a wonderful gold mine which Glenmore had virtually purchased. He needed sixty thousand dollars at once, however, to complete his remarkable bargain. Only two days of his option remained and therefore delay would be fatal. He expected this letter to find his friend at Goldite and he felt a.s.sured he would not be denied this opportunity of a lifetime to make a certain fortune. He would, of course, appeal to Beth--with certainty of her help from the wealth bequeathed her by her uncle--but naturally she was too far away,

Glenmore was unaware of the fact that his sister had come to the West.

Bostwick overlooked no details of importance. Armed with this plausible missive, he went at once to Mrs. d.i.c.k's and found that Beth was at home.

CHAPTER XVI

INVOLVING BETH

Goldite to the Eastern girl, who had found herself practically abandoned for nearly a week, had proved to be a mixture of discomforts, excitements, and disturbing elements. Fascinated by the maelstrom of the mining-camp life, and unwilling to retreat from the scene until she should see her roving brother, and gratify at least a curiosity concerning Van, she nevertheless felt afraid to be there, not only on account of the roughness and uncertainty of the existence, but also because, despite herself, she had attracted undesirable attention.

Moreover, the house was full of "gentlemen" lodgers, with three of whom Elsa was conducting most violent flirtations.

There were few respectable women in the town. It was still too early for their advent. Beth had been annoyed past all endurance. There was no possibility of even mild social diversions; there was no one to visit. While the street could be described as perfectly safe, it was nevertheless an uncomfortable place in which to walk. Bostwick's car had been recovered and brought into camp, but skilled as she was at the steering wheel, she had hardly desired or dared to take it out.

Crime was frequent in the streets and houses. Disturbing reports of marauding expeditions on the part of the convicts, still at large, came with insistent frequency. Altogether the week had been a trial to her nerves. It had also been a vexation. No man had a right, she told herself, to do and say the things that Van had said and done, only to go off, without so much as a little good-by and give no further sign.

She told herself she had a right to at least some sort of opportunity to tender her honest congratulations. She had heard of his claim--the "Laughing Water"--and perhaps she wished to know how it chanced to have this particular name. If certain disturbing reflections anent that woman who had run to him wildly, out in the street, came mistily clouding the estimate she tried to place upon his character, she confessed he certainly had the right to make an explanation. In a purely feminine manner she argued that she had the right to some such explanation--if only because of certain liberties he had taken with her hands--on which memories still warmly burned.

Wholly undecided as to what she would do if she could, and impatient with Bostwick for his sheer neglect in searching out her brother, she was thoroughly glad to see him to-day when he came so unannounced to the house.

"Well if you don't look like a mountaineer!" she said, as she met him in the dining-room, which was likewise the parlor of the place. "Where in the world have you been, all this time? You haven't come back without Glen?"

He had gone away ostensibly to find her brother.

"Well, the fact is he wasn't where I went, after all," he said. "I hastened home, after all that trip, undertaken for nothing, and found a letter from him here. I've come at once to have an important talk."

"A letter?" she cried. "Let me see it--let me read it, please.

He's--where? He's well? He's successful?"

"Sit down," answered Bostwick, taking a chair and placing his hat on the table. "There's a good deal to say. But first, how have you been here, all alone?"

"Oh--very well--I suppose," she answered, restraining the natural resentment she felt at his patent neglect. "It isn't exactly the place I'd choose to remain in, alone all the time."

"Poor little girl, I've been thinking of that," he told her, reaching across the table to take her hands. "It's worried me, Beth, worried me greatly--your unprotected position, and all that."

"Oh, you needn't worry." She withdrew her hands. Someway it seemed a sacrilege for him to touch them--it was not to be borne--she hardly knew why, or since when. "I want to know about Glen," she added.

"Never mind me."

"But I do mind," he a.s.sured her. His hand was trembling. "Beth, I--I can't talk much--I mean romantic talk, and all that, but--well--I've about concluded we ought to be married at once--for your sake--your protection--and my peace of mind. I have thought about it ever since I left you here alone."

The brightness expressive of the gayety of her nature departed from her eyes. She looked fixedly at the man's dark face, with its gray, deep-set, penetrative eyes, its bluish jaw, and knitted brows. It frightened her, someway, as it never had before. He had magnetized her always--sometimes more than now, but his influence crept upon her subtly even here.

"But I--I think I'd rather not--just yet," she faltered, crimsoning and dropping her gaze to the table. "You promised not to--to urge me again--at least till I've spoken to Glen."

"But I could not have known--forseen these conditions," he told her, leaning further towards her across the table. "Why shouldn't we be married now--at once? A six months' engagement is certainly long enough. Your position here is--well--almost dubious. You must see that. It isn't right of me--decent--not to make you my wife immediately. I wish to do so--I wish it very much."

She arose, as if to wrench herself free from the spell he was casting upon her.

"I'm all right--I'm quite all right," she said. "I'd rather not--just now. There's no one here who cares a penny who or what I am. If my position here is misunderstood--it can do no harm. I'd rather you wouldn't say anything further about it--just at present."

Her agitation did not escape him. If he thought of the horseman who had carried her off while sending himself to the convicts, his plan for vengeance only deepened.

"You must have some reason for refusing." He too arose.

"No--no particular reason," she answered, artlessly walking around the table, apparently to pick up a b.u.t.ton from the floor, but actually to avoid his contact. "I just don't wish to--to be married now--here--that's all. I ask you to keep your promise--not to ask it while we remain."

He had feared to lose her a score of times before. He feared it now more potently than ever. And there was much that he must ask. The risk of giving her a fright was not to be incurred.

"Very well," he said resignedly, "but--it's very hard to wait."

"Won't you sit down?" she asked him, an impulse of grat.i.tude upon her.

"Now do be good and sensible, and tell me all about Glen."

She returned to the table and resumed her seat.

Bostwick sat opposite and drew his forged letter from his pocket. He had placed it in Glenmore's envelope after tearing the young man's letter into sc.r.a.ps.

"This letter," said he, "was sent from way down in the desert--from Starlight, another new camp. It looks to me as if the boy has struck something very important. I'll read you what he says--or you can read it for yourself."

"No, no--read it. I'd rather listen."

He read it haltingly, as one who puzzles over unfamiliar writing. Its effect sank in the deeper for the method. Beth was open-eyed with wonder, admiration, and delight over all that Glen had done and was about to accomplish. She rose to the bait with sisterly eagerness.

"Why, he _must_ have the chance--he's _got_ to have the chance!" she cried excitedly. "What do you think of it yourself?"

Bostwick fanned the blaze with conservatism.

"It's quite a sum of money and Glen might overestimate the value of the mine. I've inquired around and learn that the property is considered tremendously promising. If we--if he actually secures that claim it will doubtless mean a for---- I don't like to lose my sense of judgment, but I do want to help the boy along. Frankly, however, I don't see how I can let him have so much. I couldn't possibly send him but thirty thousand dollars at the most."