nest
John Holman, after months of somber silence, had moved away and started
a cow ranch. But it was a question of honesty between the two men and
their children had never forgotten. Ten years had passed since they had
been boy and girl together, but the moment they met the old quarrel
flashed up again and now the feud was on.

A boisterous blast of wind, whirling dust and papers down the street,
announced the beginning of another sandstorm; and Death Valley Charley,
who had been sitting outside the gate, came muttering up the steps.
Behind him trotted Heine, his worshipful little dog, and as Virginia's
pet cat suddenly arched its back, Death Valley took Heine in his arms.

"Can't you hear 'em?" he asked tiptoeing rapidly up to Virginia. "It's
them big guns, over in Europe. It's them forty-two centimeter howitzers
and the French seventy-fives in the trenches along the Somme."

"Do you think so?" murmured Virginia, smoothing down her cat's back, "it
sounds like blasting to me."

"No--big guns!" repeated Charley, regarding her intently through his
wavering, sun-blinded eyes, and then he burst into a laugh. "You can
hear 'em, can't you, Heine?" he cried to his dog, and Heine squirmed
ecstatically and sneezed. "Hah, that's my little dog--you're so
confectionate! Now get down on the floor, and don't you go near that
cat."

He put down the dog and advanced closer to Virginia.

"He's coming!" he whispered. "I can hear him, plain--jurrr, jurrr; hud,
hud, hud, hud, hud!"

"Who's coming?" demanded Virginia, looking swiftly up the road.

"Why--him! The man you're waiting for. Can't you hear him! Hrrrr--rud!
He's coming to grab you and take you away in his auto!"

"Oh, Charley!" exclaimed Virginia, not entirely displeased, "and where
will you go then?"

"I'll go to Death Valley," he answered mysteriously. "There's lots of
gold over there. I came back one time and they says to me: 'Charley,
where've you been for such a long time?' 'In Death Valley,' I says,
'in the Funeral Range. Working in the Coffin mine, on the graveyard
shift.' Hah, hah; they can't get nothing out of me. I know where
there's gold--in the Ube-Hebes; it's a place where nobody goes. I saw
your father there, the last time I went through, and he sent word to
you not to worry. 'But for Christ's sake,' he says, 'don't tell my
wife I'm here--I'm tired of her devilish chatter!'"

"Charley!" reproved Virginia, and as he subsided into mutterings, she
looked a