when the sun was low, they came forth like
indolent butterflies to float up and down the street. They sauntered
by in pairs, half-hidden beneath silk parasols, and their skirts
swished softly as they passed. Rimrock eyed them sullenly, for a black
mood was on him--he was thinking of his lost mine. Their faces were
powdered to an unnatural whiteness and their hair was elaborately
coiffed; their dresses, too, were white and filmy and their high heels
clacked as they walked. But who was keeping these women, these wives
of officials, and superintendents and mining engineers? Did they
glance at the man who had discovered their mine and built up the town
where they lived? Well, probably they did, but not so as he could
notice it and take off his battered old hat.

Rimrock looked up the road and, far out across the desert, he could see
his own pack-train, coming in. There was money to be got, to buy
powder and grub, but who would trust Rimrock Jones now? Not the
Gunsight crowd, not McBain and his hirelings--they needed the money for
their women! He gazed at them scowling as they went pacing by him,
with their eyes fixed demurely on space; and all too well he knew that,
beneath their lashes, they watched him and knew him well. Yes, and
spoke to each other, when they were off up the street, of what a bum he
had become. That was women--he knew it--the idle kind; they judged a
man by his roll.

The pack-train strung by, each burro with its saw-horse saddle, and old
Juan and his boy behind.

"Al corral!" directed Rimrock as they looked at him expectantly, and
then he remembered something.

"Oyez, Juan," he beckoned, calling his man servant up to him, "here's
five dollars--go buy some beans and flour. It is nothing, Juanito,
I'll have more pretty soon--and here's four bits, you can buy you a
drink."

He smiled benevolently and Juan touched his hat and went sidling off
like a crab and then once more the black devil came back to plague him,
hissing Money, _Money_, MONEY! He looked up the street and a plan,
long formless, took sudden shape in his brain. There was yet McBain,
the horse-leech of a lawyer who had beaten him out of his claim. More
than once, in black moments, he had threatened to kill him; but now he
was glad he had not. Men even raised skunks, when the bounty on them
was high enough, and took the pay out of their hides. It was the same
with McBain. If he didn't come through--Rimrock shook up his