er,
this iron-handed robber, was going to start a bank! Billy lay inside the
portal of her gate of dreams and watched Wunpost as he plodded across
the plain, and she resolved to join with him and do her level best to
bring Eells' plans to naught. If he was counting on the sale of his
treasury stock to fill up the vaults of his bank he would find others in
the market with stock in both hands, peddling it out to the highest
bidder. And even if the mine was worth into the millions, she, for one,
would sell every share. It was best, after all, since Eells owned the
control, to sell out for what they could get; and if this was merely a
deep-laid scheme to buy in their stock for almost nothing they would at
least have a little ready cash.

The Campbells were poor; her father even lacked the money to buy powder
to blast out his road, and so he struggled on, grading up the easy
places and leaving Corkscrew Gorge untouched. That would call for heavy
blasting and crews of hardy men to climb up and shoot down the walls,
and even after that the jagged rock-bed must be covered and leveled to
the semblance of a road. Now nothing but a trail led up through the dark
passageway, where grinding boulders had polished the walls like glass;
and until that gateway was opened Cole Campbell's road was useless; it
might as well be all trail. But with five thousand dollars, or even
less--with whatever she received from her stock--the gateway could be
conquered, her father's dream would come true and all their life would
be changed.

There would be a road, right past their house, where great trucks would
lumber forth loaded down with ore from their mine, and return ladened
with machinery from the railroad. There would be miners going by and
stopping for a drink, and someone to talk to every day, and the
loneliness which oppressed her like a physical pain would give place to
gaiety and peace. Her father would be happy and stop working so hard,
and her mother would not have to worry--all if she, Wilhelmina, could
just sell her stock and salvage a pittance from the wreck.

She knew now what Wunpost had meant when he had described the outside
world and the men they would meet at the rush, yet for all his hard-won
knowledge he had gone down once more before Judson Eells and his gang.
But he had spoken true when he said they would resort to murder to gain
possession of their mine, and though he had yielded at last to the lure
of strong drink, in her