Do I understand
that you had an option on his entire four hundred thousand shares?"

"For twenty thousand dollars," answered Wiley, "and he was glad to get
it--but, of course, when I opened up that big body of tungsten, the
stock was worth into millions. That is, if he could keep me from making
both payments. He fought me from the start, but I put up the twenty
thousand; and the clerk of the court is holding it yet, unless the case
is decided. But Blount knew he could beat it, if he could keep me from
buying the mine under the terms of my bond and lease; and now that he's
in possession, taking out thirty or forty thousand every day, I'm licked
before I begin. In fact, the case is called already and lost by default
if I know that blackleg lawyer of mine."

"But hire a good lawyer!" protested the Colonel. "A man has a right to
his day in court and you have never appeared."

"No, and I never will," spoke up Wiley despondently. "There's a whole
lot to this case that you don't know. And the minute I appear they'll
arrest me for murder and railroad me off to the Pen. No, I'm not going
back, that's all."

"But Wiley," reasoned the Colonel, "you've got great interests at
stake--and your father will help you, I'm sure."

"No, he won't," declared Wiley. "There isn't anybody that can help me,
because Blount is in control of the courts. And I might as well add that
I was run out of Vegas by a Committee appointed for the purpose." He
rose up abruptly, rolling his sullen eyes on Virginia and the Colonel
alike. "In fact," he burst out, "I haven't got a friend on the east side
of Death Valley Sink."

"But on the west side," suggested the Colonel, drawing Virginia to his
side, "you have two good friends that I know----"

"Wait till you hear it all," broke in Wiley, bitterly, "and you're
likely to change your mind. No, I'm busted, I tell you, and the best
thing I can do is drift and never come back."

"And Virginia?" inquired the Colonel. "Am I right in supposing----"

"No," he flared up. "Friend Virginia has quit me, along with----"

"Why, Wiley!" cried Virginia, and he started and fell silent as he met
her reproachful gaze. For the sake of the Colonel they were supposed
to be lovers, whose quarrel had been happily made up, but this was
very unloverlike.

"Well, I don't deserve it," he muttered at last, "but friend Virginia
has promised to stay with me."

"Yes, I'm going to stay with him," spoke up Virginia quickly, "becau