the earth. Did you ever see a banker that wasn't a regular
robber--with special attention to widows and orphans? Well, take it from
me, Billy, they're a bunch of crooks--I guess I ought to know. I was
just eleven years old when they foreclosed the mortgage and turned my
mother and us kids into the street; and since then I've done everything
from punching cows to highway robbery but I've never forgot those
bankers. That's how come I signed up with Judson Eells, I thought I was
sticking him good; but he was playing a system and they didn't anybody
tumble to it until I discovered the Wunpost.

"W'y, there wasn't a prospector in the state of Nevada that hadn't
worked old Eells for a grubstake. We thought he was easy, kind of bugs
on mining like all the rest of these nuts, but the minute I struck the
Wunpost--_bing_, he's there with his contract and we find where
we've all been stung. We're tied up, by grab, with more whereases and
wherefores, and the parties of the first part, and so on, than you'd
find in a book of law; and the boys all found out from what he did to me
that he had us euchered at every turn. I thought I could fool him by
covering up the hole----"

"Oh, did you do that!" burst out Billy reproachfully, "and I made Dusty
Rhodes apologize!"

"Never mind," said Wunpost, "that was nothing but jaw-bone. He just said
it to get a share in our mine."

"No, but listen," protested Billy, "that isn't what I mean. Do you think
it was right to deceive Eells?"

"Was it _right_, kid!" laughed Wunpost. "That ain't nothing to what
I'm _going_ to do if I ever get the chance. Didn't he hire that
black-leg lawyer to draw up a cinch contract with the purpose of
grabbing all I found? Well then, that shows how honest _he_
was--and now I'm out after his scalp. I've got to raise a stake, so I
can fight him dollar for dollar; and then, sure as shooting, I'm going
to bust his bank and make him walk out of camp. Was it right--say,
that's a good one--you ain't been around much, have you? Well, that's
all right, Billy; I like you, all the same."

He nodded approvingly and Billy sat staring, for her world had gone
topsy-turvy again. She had wanted to leave Jail Canyon and go out into
the world, but was it possible that there existed a state of society
where there was no right and wrong? She sat thinking a minute, her head
in a whirl, and then she came back again.

"But when you covered up this mine and tried to keep it for yourself