ne
everything to get back your contract you didn't even say 'Thanks!'"

"No, sure not," he agreed, "what should I be thanking _you_ for?
Did I ask you to get back my grubstake? Not by a long shot I
didn't--what I wanted was my mine, and you turned around and sold it to
Eells. Well, where's your friend now, and his yeller dog, Lapham?
Skally-hooting across the desert for Mexico!"

"And isn't my contract any good? Won't the bank take it, or anybody? Oh,
I think you're just--just hateful!"

"You bet I am, kid!" he announced with a swagger, "that's my long suit,
savvy--hate! I never forgive an enemy and I never forget a friend, and
the man don't live that can _do_ me! I'll git him, if it takes a
thousand years!"

"Oh, there you go," she sighed, dusting her desk off petulantly, and
then she bowed her head in thought. "But I must say," she admitted, "you
have done what you said. But I thought you were just bragging at the
time."

"They _all_ did!" he beamed, "but I've showed 'em, by grab--they
ain't calling me a blow-hard now. These Blackwater stiffs that wanted to
run me out of town are coming around now to borrow five. They took up
with a crook, just because he boosted for their town, and now they're
left holding the sack. But if they'd listened to me they wouldn't be
left flat, because I told 'em I was after his hide. And say, you
should've seen him, when I came into his bank and shoved that big check
under his nose! He knowed what I was thinking and he never said: 'Boo!'
I showed him whether I knew how to write!"

He laid back and grinned broadly and Wilhelmina smiled, though a wistful
look had crept into her eyes.

"Then I suppose," she said, "you're always going to hate _me_,
because of course I did steal your mine. But now I'm glad it's gone,
because I wasn't happy a minute--do you think you can forgive me,
sometime?"

She glanced up appealingly but his brows had come down and he was
staring at her fiercely.

"Gone!" he roared, "your mine ain't gone! Ain't you ever read that
contract we framed up? Well, the mine reverts to you the first time a
payment isn't made or _if the buyer becomes a fugitive from
justice_! Yeh, my friend slipped that in along with the rest of it,
about death or an Act of God. Say, that's what you might call head
work!"

He jerked his chin and grinned admiringly but Wilhelmina did not
respond.

"Yes," she objected, "but how do I get the money to pay the men for
building the road?