ait till I
tangle with him, sometime."

"You're hungry!" she declared, still gazing at him fixedly, and he gave
way to a twisted grin.

"How'd you guess it?" he inquired; but she did not tell him, for of
course they were supposed to be friends. Yes, good friends, and
more--she had let him kiss her once, but now he seemed to have forgotten
it. He ate supper greedily and went back to the corral to sleep, and in
the morning he was gone.

The early-risers at Blackwater, out to look for their burros or to get a
little eye-opener at the saloon, were astonished to see his mules in the
adobe corral and Wunpost himself on the street. He was reputed to be in
hiding from Pisen-face Lynch, who had been inquiring for him for over a
week; and the news was soon passed to Lynch himself, for Blackwater had
a grudge against Wunpost. He had made the town, yes, in a manner of
speaking--for of course he had discovered the Willie Meena Mine and
brought in Eells and the boomers--but never to their knowledge had he
spoken a good word of them, or of anything else in town. He came
swaggering down their streets as if he owned the place, or had enough
money to buy it--and besides, he had led them on two disastrous
stampedes in which no one had even located a claim. And the Stinging
Lizard Mine was salted! Hence their haste to tell Lynch and the
malevolent zeal with which they maneuvered to bring them together.

Wunpost was standing before the Express office, waiting for the agent to
open up and receive his ore-sacks for shipment, when he espied his enemy
advancing, closely followed by an expectant crowd. Lynch was still
haggard and emaciated from his hard trip through Death Valley, and his
face had the pallor of indoors; but his small, hateful eyes seemed to
burn in their sockets and he walked with venomous quickness. But Wunpost
stood waiting, his head thrust out and his gun pulled well to the front,
and Lynch came to a sudden halt.

"So there you are!" he burst out accusingly, "you low-down, poisoning
whelp! You poisoned that water, you know you did, and I've a danged good
mind to kill ye!"

"Hop to it!" invited Wunpost, "just git them rubbernecks away. I ain't
scared of you or nobody!"

He paused, and the rubbernecks betook themselves away, but Pisen-face
Lynch did not shoot. He stood in the street, shifting his feet uneasily,
and Wunpost opened the vials of scorn.

"You're bad, ain't you?" he taunted. "You're so bad your face hurts y