who said you were a squaw?" he retorted arrogantly. "But you might
as well be, by grab! Only old Hungry Bill takes his girls down to town,
but you never git to go nowhere."

"I don't want to go!" she cried in a passion. "I want to stay here and
help all I can. But all you talk about now is how much money you've got,
as if nothing else in the world ever counts."

"Well, forget it!" grumbled Wunpost, swinging up on his mule and
starting off up the canyon. "I'll go off and give you a rest. And maybe
them girls in Los Angeles won't treat me quite so high-headed."

"I don't care," began Wilhelmina--but she did, and so she stopped. And
then the old plan, conceived aeons ago, rose up and took possession of
her mind. She followed along behind him, and already in her thoughts she
was the owner of the Sockdolager Mine. She held it for herself, without
recognizing his claims or any that Eells might bring; and while she dug
out the gold and shoveled it into sacks they stood by and looked on
enviously. But when her mules were loaded she took the gold away and
gave it to her father for his road.

"I don't care!" she repeated, and she meant it.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FINE PRINT

A week passed by, and Wilhelmina rode into Blackwater and mailed a
letter to the County Recorder; and a week later she came back, to
receive a letter in return and to buy at the store with gold. And then
the big news broke--the Sockdolager had been found--and there was a
stampede that went clear to the peaks. Blackwater was abandoned, and
swarming again the next day with the second wave of stampeders; and the
day after that John C. Calhoun piled out of the stage and demanded to
see Wilhelmina. He hardly knew her at first, for she had bought a new
dress; and she sat in an office up over the bank, talking business with
several important persons.

"What's this I hear?" he demanded truculently, when he had cleared the
room of all callers. "I hear you've located my mine."

"Yes, I have," she admitted. "But of course it wasn't yours--and
besides, you said I could have it."

"Where is it at?" he snapped, sweating and fighting back his hair, and
when she told him he groaned.

"How'd you find it?" he asked, and then he groaned again, for she had
followed his own fresh trail.

"Stung!" he moaned and sank down in a chair, at which she dimpled
prettily.

"Yes," she said, "but it was all for your own good. And anyway, you
dared me to do it."

"Yes, I