ives, and out here on the desert it's
Pisen-face Lynch and his gang. But I don't mind them--I'm looking for
that feller that shot me in the leg last month. It wasn't Lynch--I've
had him traced--and it wasn't none of those Shooshonnies; but there's
some feller in these hills that's out after my scalp and I've come back
to get him. And when I find him, kid, I'll light a fire under him
that'll burn 'im off the face of the earth. I'm going to kill him, by
grab, the same as I would a rattlesnake; I'm going to----"

"Oh, please don't talk that way!" broke in Wilhelmina impatiently, "it
gives people a bad impression. There isn't a man in Blackwater that
isn't firmly convinced that you're nothing but a bag of hot air. Well, I
don't care--that's just what they said!"

"Ahhr!" scoffed Wunpost, "them Blackwater stiffs. They're jealous,
that's what's the matter."

"No, but don't talk that way," she pleaded. "It turns folks against you.
Even Father and Mother have noticed it. You're always telling of the big
things you're going to do----"

"Well, don't I _do_ 'em?" he demanded. "What did I ever say I'd do
that I didn't make good, in the end? Don't you think I'm going to get
this bad _hombre_--this feller that's following me through the
hills? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. If I don't bring you his hair
inside of a month--you can have my mine and everything. But I'm going to
_git_ him, see? I'm going to toll him across the Valley, where
he'll have to come out into the open, and when I ketch him I'm going to
scalp him. He's nothing but a low-down, murdering assassin that old
Eells or somebody has hired----"

"Oh, _please_!" she protested and his eyes opened big before they
closed down in a sudden scowl.

"Well, I'll show you," he said and packed and rode off in silence.

CHAPTER XX

THE WAR EAGLE

Since a bullet from nowhere had shot him through the leg, Wunpost had
learned a new fear of the hills. Before, they had been his
stamping-ground, the "high places" he was so boastful of; but now they
became imbued with a malign personality, all the more fearful because it
was unknown. With painstaking care he had checked up on Pisen-face
Lynch, to determine if it was he who had ambushed him; but Lynch had
established a perfect alibi--in fact, it was almost too good. He had
been right in Blackwater during all the trouble, although now he was out
in the hills; and an Indian whom Wunpost had sent on a scout reported
that