knew he went away to forget. They did not expect him to return.
That had been ten years ago. He had written twice. Then he had drifted,
always promising the inner voice that urged him that he would find gold
for her, his child, that she might ever think kindly of him. So he tried
to buy himself--with promises. Once he had been a man of his hands, a
man who stood straight and faced the sun. Now the people of the desert
town eyed him askance. He heard them say he was mad--that the desert had
"got him." They were wrong. The desert and its secret was his--a sullen
paramour, but _his_ nevertheless. Had she not given him of her very
heart?

He viewed his shrunken body, knew that he stooped and shuffled, realized
that he had paid the inevitable, the inexorable price for the secret.
His wine of dreams had evaporated.... He sifted the coarse gold between
his fingers, letting it fall back into the pan. Was it for _this_ that
he had wasted his soul?

* * * * *

In the desert town men began to notice the regularity of his comings and
goings. Two or three of them foregathered in the saloon and commented on
it.

"He packed some dynamite last trip," asserted one.

There was a silence. The round clock behind the bar ticked loudly,
ominously.

"Then he's struck it at last," said another.

"Mebby," commented the first speaker.

The third man nodded. Then came silence again and the absolute ticking
of the clock. Presently from outside in the white heat of the road came
the rush of hoofs and an abrupt stop. A spurred and booted rider, his
swarthy face gray with dust, strode in, nodded to the group and called
for whiskey.

"Which way did he go, Saunders?" asked one.

"North, as usual," said the rider.

"Let's set down," suggested the third man.

They shuffled to a table. The bartender brought glasses and a bottle.
Then, uninvited, he pulled up a chair and sat with them. The rider
looked at him pointedly.

"Oh, I'm in on this," asserted the bartender. "Daugherty is the
Wells-Fargo man here. He won't talk to nobody but me--about _business_."

"What's that got to do with it?" queried the rider.

"Just what you'd notice, Saunders. Listen! The rat left a bag of dust in
the Company's safe last trip. Daugherty says its worth mebby five
hundred. He says the rat's goin' to bring in some more. Do I come in?"

"You're on," said the rider. "Now, see here, boys, we got to find out if
he's filed on it