ou'd be glad if McGinty'd
let you a lay?"

"Pshaw! I was only givin' you a song and dance. Not you neither, but
that pardner o' yours. I thought I'd learn that young man a lesson. But
I didn't know you'd get flim-flammed out o' your boots. Thought you
looked like you got some sense."

Unmoved by the Colonel's aspect of offended dignity, faintly dashed
with doubt, she hurried on:

"Before you go shellin' out any more cash, or haulin' stuff to Glory
Hallelujah, just you go down that prospect hole o' McGinty's when
McGinty ain't there, and see how many colours you can ketch."

The Colonel looked at her.

"Well, I'll do it," he said slowly, "and if you're right--"

"Oh, I'm all right," she laughed; "an' I know my McGinty backwards.
But"--she frowned with sudden anger--"it ain't Maudie's pretty way to
interfere with cheechalkos gettin' fooled. I ain't proud o' the trouble
I've taken, and I'll thank you not to mention it. Not to that pardner
o' yours--not to nobody."

She stuck her nose in the air, and waved her hand to French Charlie,
who had just then opened the door and put his head in. He came straight
over to her, and she made room for him on the bench.

The Colonel went out full of thought. He listened attentively when the
ex-Governor, that evening at Keith's, said something about the woman up
at the Gold Nugget--"Maudie--what's the rest of her name?"

"Don't believe anybody knows. Oh, yes, they must, too; it'll be on her
deeds. She's got the best hundred by fifty foot lot in the place. Held
it down last fall herself with a six-shooter, and she owns that cabin
on the corner. Isn't a better business head in Minook than Maudie's.
She got a lay on a good property o' Salaman's last fall, and I guess
she's got more ready dust even now, before the washin' begins, than
anybody here except Salaman and the A.C. There ain't a man in Minook
who wouldn't listen respectfully to Maudie's views on any business
proposition--once he was sure she wasn't fooling."

And Keith told a string of stories to show how the Minook miners
admired her astuteness, and helped her unblushingly to get the better
of one another.

The Colonel stayed in Minook till the recording was all done, and
McGinty got tired of living on flap-jacks at the gulch.

The night McGinty arrived in town the Colonel, not even taking the Boy
into his confidence, hitched up and departed for the new district.

He came back the next day a sadder and a wiser man.