se
it was all my fault. I'm going to go with him, father, wherever he goes
and----"

"God bless you, my daughter!" said the Colonel, smiling proudly, "and
never forget you're a Huff!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIERY FURNACE

To be a Huff, of course, was to be brave and true and never go back on a
friend; but as the Colonel that evening began to speak on the subject,
Virginia crept off to bed. She was tired from her night trip across the
Sink of Death Valley, with only Crazy Charley for a guide; but it was
Wiley, the inexorable, who drove her off weeping, for he would not take
her hand. His mind was still fixed on the Gethsemane of the soul that he
had gone through in Blount's bank at Vegas, and strive as she would she
could not bring him back to play his poor part as lover. Whether she
loved him or not was not the question--not even if she was willing to
throw away her life by following him in his wanderings. Three times he
had trusted her and three times she had played him false--and was that
the honor of the Huffs?

She was penitent now and, in the presence of her father, more gentle and
womanly than seemed possible; but next week or next month or in the long
years to come, was she the woman he could trust? They passed before his
eyes in a swift series of images, the days when he had trusted her
before; and always, behind her smile, there was something else,
something cold and calculating and unkind. Her eyes were soft now, and
gentle and imploring, but they had looked at him before with scorn and
hateful laughter, when he had staked his soul on her word. He had
trusted her--too far--and before Blount and all his sycophants she had
made him a mock and a reviling.

The Colonel was talking, for his mood was expansive, but at last he fell
silent and waited.

"Wiley, my boy," he said when Wiley looked up, "you must not let the past
overmaster you. We all make mistakes, but if our hearts are right there
is nothing that should cause vain regrets. I judged from what you said
once that your present disaster is due to a misplaced trust--in fact, if
I remember, to a woman. But do not let this treachery, this betrayal of
a trust, turn your mind against all womankind. I have known many noble
and high-minded women whom I would trust with my very life; and since
Virginia, as I gather, has offered to bind up your wounds, I hope you
will not remain embittered. She is my daughter, of course, and my love
may have blinded m