irt and papers flew before it; tin cans
leapt forth from holes and alleys; and sticks and small stones, sucked
up in the vortex, joined in on the devil's dance. Ancient signs creaked
and groaned and threatened to leave their moorings, old houses gave up
shingles and loose boards, and up the street on the deserted bank
building, the fire-doors banged like cannon. Then the night came on and
the streets of Keno were empty, except for the flying dirt.

But it is nights such as this that move some men to greater daring and
as Wiley Holman, far out on the desert, felt the rush and surge of wind
he struck a swift circle and, turning back towards Keno, he bored his
way into the teeth of the storm. The gravel from the road slashed and
slatted against his radiator and his machine trembled before the buffets
of the gale, but it was just such a night as he needed for his purpose
and he ran with his lights switched off. If the Widow Huff, by any
chance, should glance out across the plain she might notice their gleam
and divine his purpose, which was to inspect the Paymaster mine. As a
stockholder and part owner it was, of course, his right to enter the
premises at will, but the Widow had placed her own personal mandate
above the laws of the land, and it was better, and safer, to avoid all
discussion by visiting the property after dark.

Up the long slope of the valley the white racer moved slowly, shuddering
and thundering as it took the first hill, and as the outlying houses
leaped up from the darkness, Wiley muffled his panting exhaust. In the
sheltered valley, under the lee of Shadow Mountain, the violence of the
wind was checked and some casual citizen, out looking at the stars,
might hear him above the storm. He turned off the main road and,
following up a side street, glided quietly into the shelter of a barn,
and five minutes later, with his prospector's pick and ore-sacks, he
toiled up the trail to the mine.

The Paymaster mine lay on the slope of Gold Hill, directly overlooking
the town--first the huge, dismantled mill; then the white slide of the
waste dump; and then, up the gulch, the looming gallows-frame of the
hoist and the dim bulk of abandoned houses. The mine had made the town,
and the town had clustered near it in the broad oval of the valley
below; but in its day the Paymaster had been a community by itself, with
offices and bunk-houses and stores. Now all was deserted and in the pale
light of the moon it seemed