bout with shocked eyes. "You talk too much," she said at last.
"Didn't I tell you not to say that again? Because if mother hears it
she'll drive you out of the house, and then what will Heine do?"

"Heine! Come here, sir!" commanded Charley abruptly, and slapped him
until he yelped. "Well, now," he warned as Heine slunk away, "you look
out or you lose your house."

"I guess you'd better go now," said Virginia discreetly, and continued
her vigil alone. Death Valley was harmless, but when he began hearing
things there was no telling where he would stop. The next minute he
would be seeing things, and then getting messages, and then looking
through mountains with radium. He was harmless, of course, but when
there was a sandstorm--well, some people thought he was crazy. And
there was a sandstorm coming up. It was blowing in from the north and
rushing clouds of dirt down the street; and along in the night, when it
had gained its full force, the sand and gravel would fly. She rose to go
in, but just at that moment she heard a low drumming up the street. It
increased to a bubbling, a drumming, a thunder, and like the spirit of
the rough north wind Wiley Holman went racing through the town. His hat
was off and as he drifted by his hair thrashed wildly in his eyes, yet
he glanced up in passing and it seemed to Virginia that he gave her a
roguish smile. Then in a series of explosions that brought the Widow
running he dashed on and whirled out across the desert.

"Oh, that devil!" she raged, brandishing her heavy shotgun at the
disappearing cloud of dust. "He's just making that hubbub to mock me!
He'll be coming back--I know it, the scoundrel--but you wait, he won't
fool me again!"

She stood on the gallery while the food scorched in the kitchen and
watched the boring arrow of dust, but it swept on and on across the
boundless desert until at last it was lost in the storm. "Oh, he'll be
back!" she screamed to the gathering neighbors. "I know him, he's after
my mine. But he'd better watch out! If he ever goes near it, I'll shoot
him, you mark my word!"

"No, he won't," said Virginia, but when they were all gone she came back
and gazed down the road.

CHAPTER IV

THE GHOST-MAN

As the sun paled to nothing in the yellow murk of dust, a high cloud of
sand overleapt the northern peaks and came sifting down the slopes of
Shadow Mountain. The gusts of wind began to wail in boding fury and then
the storm struck the town. D