a good-looker,
ain't she? Goin' to git it framed, Sandy?"

Snows fell, the temperature ranged down far below zero at times, winter
gave reluctant place to spring until the last moment when it turned and
fled and, far into the desert, myriads of flower-blooms sprang up
overnight while everywhere the cactus gleamed in silken blooms in yellow
and crimson.

One April night the Bailey flivver came charging up to Three Star,
smothering itself in a cloud of dust that had not settled before there
sprang out of it Miranda Bailey and the lanky Ed, temporarily charged
with a tremendous activity. The cause of young Ed's galvanism was so
strong that he actually won from his aunt as bearer of the news.

"Gold!" he cried. "They've struck pay dirt at Dynamite! Chunks of
sylvanite that sweat gold in the fire. Assay thirty thousand dollars a
ton. Whole streaks of it. Vein's twelve foot wide. The whole town's
stampedin' by way of White Cliff Canyon. I'm goin'. Got a pick an' shovel
in the car. Aunt Mirandy, she was bound we'd come this way. Mebbe we can
pack you all in. But you got to hurry or they'll swarm over Dynamite
like flies on a chunk o' liver!"

"It's true," backed Miss Bailey. "Folks over to Hereford have gone
crazy. I caught a word or two that Plimsoll's to the bottom of the rush.
Ed heard he got hold of some samples them easterners took an' had 'em
sent away an' assayed. They turned out to be the big stuff. 'Course you
can't depend on gossip, when folks are talkin' mines but, if it's so,
Plimsoll's burned the wind to git first pick. An' he'll grab those
claims of Molly's first thing. That's one reason I made Ed come this
way. Thought you might like to come erlong, on'y he took the words out
of my mouth."

"You goin'?" asked Mormon. There were two red splotches in Miranda's
cheeks, a glitter in her eyes that suggested she had not escaped the
gold fever.

"Sure am," she answered. "Ed Bailey Senior, he 'lows there's no sense in
chasin' gold underground. Says he likes to see his prospects growin' up
under his own eyes an' gazin' on his own land. I'm the adventurous one
of the Bailey fam'ly, though you mightn't guess it to look at me," she
said with a twitch of her lips. "Me an' young Ed here. He takes after
me. Got the gamblin' germ in our systems. Want to git somethin' fo'
nothin'," she went on with grim humor. "I reckon Ed's right but,
land-sake, doin' the same thing, day in an' out--gits mighty monotonous.
Bein' a woma