eath Valley 259
XXX. An Evening With Socrates 269
XXXI. The Broken Trust 279
XXXII. A Huff 290
XXXIII. The Fiery Furnace 299
XXXIV. A Clean-up 305

SHADOW MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER I

THE LAST OF TEN THOUSAND

Under the rim of Shadow Mountain, embraced like a pearl of great price
by the curve of Bonanza Point and the mined-out slope of Gold Hill, the
deserted city of Keno lay brooding and silent in the sun. A dry, gusty
wind, swooping down through the northern pass, slammed the great iron
fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a
cloud of sand and dirt and, whirling it down past empty stores and assay
offices, deposited it in the doorways of gambling houses and dance
halls, long since abandoned to the rats. An old man, pottering about
among the ruins, gathered up some broken boards and hobbled off; and
once more Keno, the greatest gold camp the West has ever seen, sank back
to silence and dreams.

A round of shots wakened the echoes of Shadow Mountain; a lonely miner
came down the trail from Gold Hill, where in the old days the Paymaster
had turned out its million a month; and then, far out across the floor
of the desert on the road that led in from the railroad, there appeared
an arrow-point of dust. It grew to a racing streak of white, the distant
purring of the motor gave way to a deep-voiced thunder and as the
powerful car glided swiftly up the street the doors of old houses opened
unexpectedly and the last of ten thousand looked out.

There were old men and cripples, left stranded by the exodus; and
prospectors who had moved into the vacant houses along with the other
desert rats; but out on the gallery of the old Huff mansion--where the
creepers still clung to the lattice--there was a flutter of white and a
girl came out with a kitten in her arms. In the days of gold--when ten
thousand men, the choice spirits of two hemispheres, had tramped down
this same deserted street--the house of Colonel Huff, the discoverer of
the Paymaster, had been the social center of Keno. And so it was still,
for the Widow Huff remained; but across the front of the hospitable
gallery where the Colonel had entertained the town, a cheap cloth sign
announced meals fifty cents and Virginia, his daughter, was the waiter.
She stood by the sign, still high-headed and patrici