have been somebody else. Don't you think it was
some other man?"

"I don't know," answered Wiley, and sat staring straight ahead as she
ran on with her arguments and entreaties. After all, what did he have
to base his belief upon, except the babblings of brain-cracked
Charley? They had found the Colonel's riding-burro, and his
saddle-bags and papers, besides his rifle and canteen; and the
Shoshone trailers had followed the tracks of a man until they were
lost in the drifting sand-hills. And yet Charley's remarks, and his
repeated attempts to get across the valley with some whiskey; there
was something there, certainly, upon which to build hope--and Virginia
was very insistent.

"Yes, I think it was another man," he said at length. "Either that or
your father escaped. He might have lost one canteen and still have had
another, or he might have found his way to some water-hole. But from the
way Charley talks, and tries to cover up his breaks, I feel sure that
your father is alive."

"Oh, goodie!" she cried and before he could stop her she had stooped
over and kissed his bruised head. "Now you know I'm sorry," she burst
out impulsively, "and will you go out and look for him at once?"

"Pretty soon," said Wiley, putting her gently away. "After I make my
payment on the mine. They'd be sure to jump me, now."

"Oh, but why not now?" she pleaded. "They wouldn't jump your mine."

"Yes, they would," he replied. "They'd jump me in a minute! I don't dare
to go off the grounds."

"But what's the mine," she demanded insistently, "compared to finding
father?"

"Well, not very much," he conceded frankly, "but this is the way I'm
fixed. I've got the whole world against me, including you and your
mother, and I've got to play out my hand. There's nobody I can
trust--even my father has turned against me--and I've got to fight
this out myself."

"What? Just for the money? Do you think more of that than you do of
finding my father?"

"No, I don't," he said, "but I can't go now, and so there's no use
talking."

"No," she answered, drawing resentfully away from him, "there's no use
talking to _you_! He might be dying, or out of food, but you don't
think of anything but that money!"

"Well, maybe so," he retorted tartly, "but if you'd just left me alone,
instead of sicking all your dogs on me, I'd've been over there looking
for him, long ago. Of course I'm wrong--that's understood from the
start; but----"

"What dogs did I se