d then, when chance led him to a rich vein of ore, had
covered up the hole and said nothing. Yet for all his human weaknesses
he had one godlike quality, a regal disregard for wealth; for he had
kept his plighted word and divided, half and half, this mine towards
which all Blackwater now rushed. She looked at him again and her rosy
lips parted--he had earned the meed of a smile.

The day had dawned auspiciously, as far as Billy was concerned, for she
was back in her overalls and her father had consented to take her along
to the mine. The claim was part hers and Wunpost had insisted that she
accompany them back to the strike. Dusty Rhodes would be there, with his
noisy demands and his hints at greater rights in the claim; and in the
first wild rush complications might arise that would call for a speedy
settlement. But with Billy at his side and Cole Campbell as a witness,
every detail of their agreement could be proved on the instant and the
Willie Meena started off right. So Wunpost smiled back when he beheld
the make-believe boy who had come to his aid on her mule; and as they
rode off down the canyon, driving four burros, two packed with water, he
looked her over approvingly.

In skirts she had something of the conventional reserve which had always
made him scared of women; but as a boy, as Billy, she was one partner in
a thousand, and as carefree as the wind. Upon the back of her saddle,
neatly tied up in a bag, she carried the dress that she would wear at
the mine; but riding across the mesa on the lonely Indian trail she
clung to the garb of utility. In overalls she had ridden up and down the
corkscrew canyon that led to her father's mine; she had gone out to hunt
for burros, dragged in wood and carried up water and done the daily
duties of a man. Both her brothers were gone, off working in the mines,
and their tasks descended to her; until in stride and manner and speech
she was by instinct, a man and only by thought a woman.

The years had slipped by, even her mother had hardly noticed how she too
had grown up like the rest; and now in one day she had stepped forth
into their councils and claimed her place as a man. Yes, that was the
place that she had instinctively claimed but they had given her the
place of a woman. When it came to prospecting among the lonely peaks she
could go as far as she chose; but in the presence of men, even as an
owner in the great mine, she must confine her free limbs within skirts.