Now as a personal favor,
please don't lend her any money or help her to get back her stock;
because if you do----"

"I won't!" promised Wiley, holding up his right hand. "But say, don't
stop me--I'm starving."

He ran down the trail, limping slightly on his game leg, and Blount sat
down on a rock.

"Well, I'll be bound!" he puffed and gazed at the quit-claim ruefully.

The tables were all set when Wiley re-entered the dining-room from which
he had retreated once before in such haste, and Virginia was there and
waiting, though her smile was a trifle uncertain. A great deal of water
had flowed down the gulch since he had advised her to keep her stock,
but the assayer at Vegas was worse than negligent--he had not reported
on the piece of white rock. Therefore she hardly knew, being still in
the dark as to his motives in giving the advice, whether to greet Wiley
as her savior or to receive him coldly, as a Judas. If the white quartz
was full of gold that her father had overlooked--say fine gold, that
would not show in the pan--then Wiley was indeed her friend; but if the
quartz was barren and he had purposely deceived her in order to boom his
own mine--she smiled with her lips and asked him rather faintly if he
wanted his supper at once.

But if Virginia was still a Huff, remembering past treacheries and
living in the expectancy of more, the Widow cast aside all petty
heart-burnings in her joy at the humiliation of Stiff Neck George.
Leaving Virginia in the kitchen, to fry Wiley's steak, she rushed into
the dining-room with her eyes ablaze and all but shook his hand.

"Well, well," she exulted, "I'll have to take it back--you certainly did
boot him good. I said you were a coward but I was watching you through
my spy-glass and I nearly died a-laughing. You just walked right up to
him--and you were cursing him scandalous, I could tell by the look on
your face--and then all at once you made a jump and gave him that awful
kick. Oh, ho, ho; you know I've always said he looked like a man that
was watching for a swift kick from behind; and now--after waiting all
these years--oh, ho ho--you gave him what was coming to him!"

The Widow sat down and held her sides with laughter and Wiley's grim
features, that had remained set and watchful, slowly relaxed to a
flattered grin. He had indeed stood up to Stiff Neck George and booted
him down the dump, so that the score of that night when he had been
hunted like a rabbit was more