shoot you for a camp-robbing hound!"

"Well, go ahead then," burst out Wiley defiantly, "if that's the way you
feel--all I took was one can of tomatoes!"

"Yes! One can! Wasn't that all I had? And you robbed me before, you
rascal!"

"I did not!" retorted Wiley, and as the old man looked him over he
hesitated and lowered his gun.

"Say, who are you, anyway?" he asked at last and glanced swiftly at
Wiley's tracks in the sand. "Well--that's all right," he ran on
hastily, "I see you aren't the man. There was a renegade came through
here on the twentieth of last July and stole everything I had. I
trailed him, dad-burn him, clear to the edge of Death Valley--he was
riding my favorite burro--and if it hadn't been for a sandstorm that
came up and stopped me, I'd have bored him through and through. He
stole my rifle and even my letters, and valuable papers besides; but
he went to his reward, or I miss my guess, so we'll leave him to the
mercy of hell. As for my tomatoes, you're welcome, my friend; it's
long since I've had a guest."

He held out his hand and advanced, smiling kindly, but Wiley stepped
back--it was Colonel Huff.

CHAPTER XXX

AN EVENING WITH SOCRATES

How the Colonel had come to be reported dead it was easy enough now to
surmise. Some desperate fugitive, or rambling hobo miner seeking a
crosscut to the Borax Mines below, had raided his camp in his absence;
and, riding off on his burro, had met his death in a sandstorm. His
were the tracks that the Indians had followed and somewhere in Death
Valley he lay beneath the sand dunes in place of a better man. But the
Colonel--did he know that his family had mourned him as dead, and
bandied his stock back and forth? Did he know that the Paymaster had
been bonded and opened up, and lost again to Blount? And what would be
his answer if he knew the man before him was the son of Honest John
Holman? Wiley closed down his lips, then he took the outstretched hand
and looked the Colonel straight in the eye.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "that I can't give you my name or tell you
where I'm from; but I've got a bottle of whiskey that will more than
make up for the loss of that can of tomatoes!"

"Whiskey!" shrilled the Colonel and then he smiled benignly and laid a
fatherly hand upon his shoulder. "Never mind, my young friend, what you
have done or not done; because I'm sure it was nothing dishonorable--and
now if you will produce your bottle we'll drink to our