ed Winchesters. What's the idee in trying to
kill me?"

"Why, we aren't trying to kill you!" burst out Judson Eells vehemently.
"Quite the contrary, we've been trying to find you. But perhaps you can
tell us about poor Mr. Lynch--he has disappeared completely."

"What about them Apaches?" inquired Wunpost pointedly, and Judson Eells
went white.

"Why--what Apaches?" he faltered at last and Wunpost regarded him
sternly.

"All right," he said, "I don't know nothing if you don't. But I reckon
they turned the trick. That Manuel Apache was a bad one." He reached
back into his hip-pocket and drew out a coiled-up scalp-lock. "There's
his hair," he stated, and smiled.

"What? Did you kill him?" cried Eells, starting up from his chair, but
Wunpost only shrugged enigmatically.

"I ain't talking," he said. "Done too much of that already. What I've
come to say is that I've buried all my money and I'm not going back to
that mine. So you can call off your bad-men and your murdering Apache
Indians, because there's no use following me now. Thinking about taking
a little trip for my health."

He paused expectantly but Judson Eells was too shocked to make any
proper response. His world was tumbling about him, all his plans had
come to naught--and Lynch was gone. He longed to question further, to
seek out some clew, but he dared not, for his hands were not clean. He
had hired this Apache whose grisly scalp-lock now lay before him, and
the others who had been with Lynch; and if it ever became known----He
shuddered and let his lip drop.

"This is horrible!" he burst out hoarsely, "but why should they kill
Lynch?"

"And why should they kill _me_?" added Wunpost. "You've got a
nerve," he went on, "bringing those devils into the country--don't you
know they're as treacherous as a rattlesnake? No, you've been going too
far; and it's a question with me whether I won't report the whole
business to the sheriff. But what's the use of making trouble? All I
want is that contract--and this time I reckon I'll get it."

He nodded confidently but Judson Eells' proud lip went up and instantly
he became the bold financier.

"No," he said, "you'll never get it, Mr Calhoun--not until you take me
to the Sockdolager Mine."

"Nothing doing," replied Wunpost "not for you or any other man. I stay
away from that mine, from now on. Why should I give up a half--ain't I
got thirty thousand dollars, hid out up here under a stone? Live and let
live, se