and she was back in her
home the Widow's proud spirit was broken. She retired to the kitchen and
the balm of a great peace was laid upon tumultuous Keno. For years the
bold ego of Colonel Huff's wife had dominated the very life of the camp,
but the son of Honest John had at last found a way of putting her anger
in leash. Rage as she might in the privacy of her kitchen, or pour out
her woes to the neighbors, when Wiley Holman came by she turned away her
face and allowed him to pass in silence. And Wiley himself never gave
her a glance, nor Virginia when he met her in the street; for the memory
of their insults was still hot in his brain, and all he asked for was
peace.

He was safe, at last, safe to remodel the mill and bring up the ore from
the mine; but as his work grew and prospered the anger died in his
breast and his heart turned back to Virginia. She was quiet now, with
averted eyes and the sad, brooding face of a nun; and she worked early
and late in the crowded dining-room, serving meals to the hard-rock
miners. He had closed down his cook-house to give them some patronage,
when the first mad rush of prospectors was past; but though they fed his
men and took the money that he had paid them, they owned no obligation
to him.

In the Paymaster the pumps were working steadily now, clearing the water
from the submerged passages, and as the first checks came back in
payment for his tungsten he ordered more timbers and men. There was
plenty of ore on the dump for the moment but, while he separated it from
the waste and shipped it to town, he caught up the falling ground in the
drifts and prepared to stope out the scheelite. In the old, dismantled
mill he had a crew working over-time, installing a rock-crusher and a
concentrating plant; and every truck that brought out timbers and
supplies took back its tons of ore. The price of tungsten leapt from
forty dollars a unit to sixty and sixty-five, and rival buyers clamored
for his ore; the mills treated it for almost nothing in order to get
control of it and his credit was A1 at the bank--but when he passed
Virginia she turned her face away and his heart turned heavy as lead.

It was the price of success, and Wiley recognized it, but he rebelled
against his fate. What fault was it of his that her father and his
father had fallen out over the mine? He had shown by the stock that the
treachery had been Blount's and neither of them was to blame. What fault
was it of his tha