d thousand dollar bills--but he
deposited it all without saying a word and went out to buy the drinks.

"That's all right," he said, "the drinks are on me. But I wanted to know
that that money was _safe_ before I went in and put it in the
bank."

It was a great triumph for Eells and a great boost for his bank, and he
insisted in the end upon shaking hands with Wunpost and assuring him
there was no hard feeling. Wunpost took it all grimly, for he claimed to
be a sport, but he saddled up soon after and departed for the hills,
leaving Blackwater delirious with joy. So old Wunpost had been stung and
called again by the redoubtable Judson Eells, and the bank had been
proved to be perfectly sound and a credit to the community it served! It
made pretty good reading for the _Blackwater Blade_, which had
recently been established in their midst, and the committee of boosters
ordered a thousand extra copies and sent them all over the country. That
was real mining stuff, and every dollar of Wunpost's money had been dug
from the Sockdolager Mine. Eells set to work immediately to build him a
road and to order the supplies and machinery, and as the development
work was pushed towards completion John C. Calhoun was almost forgotten.
He was gone, that was all they knew, and if he never came back it would
be soon enough for Eells.

But there was one who still watched for the prodigal's return and longed
ardently for his coming, for Wilhelmina Campbell still remembered with
regret the days when their ranch had been his goal. No matter where he
had been, or what desperate errand took him once more into the hills, he
had headed for their ranch like a homing pigeon that longs to join its
mates. The portal of her tunnel had been their trysting place, where he
had boasted and raged and denounced all his enemies and promised to
return with their scalps. But that was just his way, and it was harmless
after all, and wonderfully exciting and amusing; but now the ranch was
dead, except for the gang of road-makers who came by from their camp up
the canyon.

For her father at last had consented to build the road, since Wunpost
had disclaimed all title to the mine; but now it was his daughter who
looked on with a heavy heart, convinced that the money was accursed. She
had stolen it, she knew, from the man who had been her lover and who had
trusted her as no one else; only Wunpost was too proud to make any
protest or even acknowledge he had been w