the Shoshones had no knowledge of the shooting. They, too, had
become aware of the strange presence in the hills, though none of them
had really seen it, and their women were afraid to go out after the
pinon-nuts for fear of being caught and stolen.

The prowler was no renegade Shoshone, for his kinsmen would know about
him, and yet Wunpost had a feeling it was an Indian. And he had another
hunch--that the Indian was employed by Eels and Pisen-face Lynch. For,
despite Wilhelmina's statement, there was one man in Blackwater who did
not consider him a bag of hot air. Judson Eells took him seriously, so
seriously, in fact, that he was spending thousands of dollars on
detectives; and Wunpost knew for a certainty that there was a party in
the hills, waiting and watching to trail him to his mine. His departure
from Los Angeles had been promptly reported, and Lynch and several
others had left town--which was yet another reason why Wunpost quit the
hills and went north over the Death Valley Trail.

Life had suddenly become a serious affair to the man who had discovered
the Willie Meena, and as he neared that mine he veered off to the right
and took the high ground to Wild Rose. Yet he could not but observe that
the mine was looking dead, and rumor had it that the paystreak had
failed. The low-grade was still there and Eells was still working it;
but out on the desert and sixty miles from the railroad it could hardly
be expected to pay. No, Judson Eells was desperate, for he saw his
treasure slipping as the Wunpost had slipped away before; it was
slipping through his fingers and he grasped at any straw which might
help him to find the Sockdolager. It was the curse of the Panamints that
the veins all pinched out or ran into hungry ore; and for the second
time, when he had esteemed himself rich, he had found the bottom of the
hole. He had built roads and piped water and set up a mill and settled
down to make his pile; and then, with that strange fatality which seemed
to pursue him, he had seen his profits fail. The assays had shown that
his pay-ore was limited and that soon the Willie Meena must close, and
now he was taking the last of his surplus and making a desperate fight
for the Sockdolager.

Half the new mine was his, according to law, and since Wunpost had dared
him to do his worst he was taking him at his word. And Wunpost at last
was getting scared, though not exactly of Eells. For, since he alone
knew the location of h