,
but that white, scurrying form was too good a marker and she followed
him through her glasses for an hour. He would go bounding up some ridge
and plunge down into the next canyon; and then, still running, he would
top another summit until at last he was lost in a black canyon. It was
different from the rest, its huge flank veiled in shadow until it was
black as the entrance to a cavern; and the piebald point that crowned
its southern rim was touched with a broad splash of white. Wilhelmina
marked it well and then she turned back with crazy schemes still chasing
through her brain.

Time and again Wunpost had boasted that his mine was not staked, and
that it lay there a prize for the first man who found it or trailed him
to his mine. Well, she, Wilhelmina, had trailed him part way; and after
he was gone she would ride to that black canyon and look for big chunks
of gold. And if she ever found his mine she would locate it for herself,
and have her claim recorded; and then perhaps he would change his ways
and stop calling her Billy and Kid. She was not a boy, and she was not a
kid; but a grown-up woman, just as good as he was and, it might be, just
as smart. And oh, if she could only find that hidden mine and dig out a
mule-load of gold! It would serve him right, when he came back from Los
Angeles or from having a good time inside, to find that his mine had
been jumped by a girl and that she had taken him at his word. He had
challenged her to find it, and dared her to stake it--very well, she
would show him what a desert girl can do, once she makes up her mind to
play the game.

He was always exhorting her to play the game, and to forget all that
righteousness stuff--as if being righteous was worse than a crime, and a
reflection upon the intelligence as well. But she would let him know
that even the righteous can play the game, and if she could ever stake
his mine she would show him no mercy until he confessed that he had been
wrong. And then she would compel him to make his peace with Eells
and--but that could be settled later. She rode home in a whirl, now
imagining herself triumphant and laying down the law to him and Eells;
then coming back to earth and thinking up excuses to offer when her
lover returned. He might find her tracks, where she had followed on his
trail--well, she would tell him about Good Luck, and how he had led her
up the trail until at last he had run away and left her. And if he
demanded the kiss-