rned Charley, becoming suddenly confidential.
"I'll show you a mountain of gold. It's over across Death Valley, in
the Ube-Hebes; the Colonel is over there now."

"Is that so?" inquired Wiley, and Charley looked at him strangely, as if
dazed.

"Aw, no; of course not!" he burst out angrily. "I forgot--the Colonel is
dead. You Heine; come over here, sir."

Heine crept up unwillingly and Charley slapped him. "Now--shut up!" he
admonished and went off into crazy mutterings.

"What's that?" he cried, rousing up suddenly to listen, and a savage
look replaced the blank stare. "Can't you hear him?" he asked. "It's
Stiff Neck George--he's coming up the alley to kill you. Here, take my
gun; and when he opens the door you fill him full of holes!"

Wiley listened intently, then he reached for the heavy pistol and sat
up, watching the door. The wind soughed and howled and rattled at the
windows, over which Charley had stretched heavy blankets, and it seemed
to his startled imagination that someone was groping at the door. The
memory of the skulking form that had followed him rose up with the
distinctness of a vision and at a knock on the door he cocked his pistol
and beckoned Death Valley to one side.

"Come in!" he called, but as the door swung open it was Virginia who
stood facing his gun.

"O--oh!" she screamed, and then she flushed angrily as Charley began to
laugh.

"Well, laugh then, you fool," she said to Wiley, "and when you're
through, just look at this that we found!"

She held up the ore-bag that Wiley had lost and strode dramatically in.
"Look at that!" she cried, and strewing the white quartz on the table
she pointed her finger in his face. "You stole my specimen!" she cried
accusingly. "That's why you came back for more. But you give it back to
me--I want it this minute. I see you're honest--like your father!"

She spat it out venomously, more venomously than was needful, for he
was already fumbling for the rock; and when he gave it back he smiled
over-scornfully and his lower lip mounted up.

"All right," he said, "you don't have to holler for it. You're getting
to be just like your mother."

"I'm not!" she denied, but after looking at him a minute she burst into
tears and fled.

CHAPTER VI

ALL CRAZY

The wind was still blowing when Wiley was awakened by the cold of the
October morning. In the house all was dark, on account of the blankets
which Death Valley had nailed over the windows, bu