ys she had a will of her own that would not
be denied. And when she saw him come back, like a man from the dead--he
paused and blinked his eyes. But what would _he_ say--would he tell
her what had happened? No, there he was again, right back where he had
started from--the thing for him to do was to _keep still_. Say
nothing about Lynch and catching Apaches in bear-traps, just look happy
and listen to her talk.

It was morning and the sun had just touched the house which hung like
driftwood against the side of the hill. The mud of the cloudburst had
turned to hard pudding-stone, which resounded beneath his mule's feet.
The orchard was half buried, the garden in ruins, the corral still
smothered with muck; but as he rode up the new trail a streak of white
quit the house and came bounding down to meet him. It was Wilhelmina,
still dressed in women's clothes but quite forgetful of everything but
her joy; and when he dismounted she threw both arms about his neck, and
cried when he gave her a kiss.

CHAPTER XXIV

SOMETHING NEW

There are compensations for everything, even for being given up for
dead, and as he was welcomed back to life by a sweet kiss from
Wilhelmina, Wunpost was actually glad he had been shot. He was glad he
was hungry, for now she would feed him; glad he was wounded, for she
would be his nurse; and when Cole Campbell and his wife took him in and
made much of him he lost his last bitterness against Lynch. In the first
place, Lynch was dead, and not up on the ridge waiting to pot him for
what money he had; and in the second place Lynch had shot right past his
heart and yet had barely wounded him at all. But the sight of that
crease across his breast and the punctured hole through his arm quite
disarmed the Campbells and turned their former disapproval to a hovering
admiration and solicitude.

If the hand of Divine Providence had loosed the waterspout down their
canyon to punish him for his overweening pride, perhaps it had now saved
him and turned the bullet aside to make him meet for repentance. It was
something like that which lay in their minds as they installed him in
their best front room, and when they found that his hardships had left
him chastened and silent they even consented to accept payment for his
horse-feed. If they did not, he declared, he would pack up forthwith and
take his whole outfit to Blackwater; and the fact was the Campbells were
so reduced by their misfortunes that they