't hurt him much, nohow. Jest put on
some pine pitch and a chew of tobacco and he'll fall off to sleep like a
child."

He stood blinking helplessly as Virginia heated some water and poured in
a teaspoonful of carbolic, then as she bathed the wounds and picked out
the last shot, Charley placed a disc on his phonograph.

"Does he want some music?" he inquired of Heine, who was sitting up and
begging, but Virginia put down her foot. "No, Charley," she said with a
forbidding frown, "you go ask mother for a needle and thread."

"He's kind of crazy to-night," she whispered to Wiley, when Death Valley
was safely out of sight, "you'd better come over to the house."

"Huh, I guess we're all crazy," answered Wiley, laughing shortly. "I can
stand it--but how does he act?"

"Oh, he hears things--and gets messages--and talks about Death Valley.
He got lost over there, three years ago last August, and the heat kind
of cooked his brains. He heard your automobile, when you came back
to-night--that's why mother and all the rest of them went over to the
mine to get you. I'm sorry she shot you up."

"Well, don't you care," he said reassuringly. "But she sure overplayed
her hand."

"Yes, she did," acknowledged Virginia, trying not to quarrel with her
patient, "but, of course, she didn't know about that tax sale."

"Well, she knows it now," he answered pointedly, and when Charley came
back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away
and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and
Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her
fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but
behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he
knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he
had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine.
That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative--and
brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and
effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well
that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be
placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit.
The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other
Paymasters--only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then
Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.

"I heard you," he sa