st out hotly. "This isn't as funny
as you think. What's going to happen to us if you take over that mine? I
declare, you've been standing in with Blount!"

"I knew it," he mocked. "You catch me every time. But what about Charley
here--does he get his money or not?" He turned to Death Valley, who was
standing in the doorway watching their quarrel with startled eyes. "I
guess you're right, Charley," he added, smiling wryly. "It must be
something in the air."

"Are you going to take that offer," demanded Virginia, wrathfully, "and
rob me and mother of our mine?"

"Oh, no," he answered, "I turned it down cold. I knew you wouldn't
approve."

"You knew nothing of the kind!" she came back sharply, the angry tears
starting in her eyes. "And I don't believe he ever made it."

"Well, ask him," suggested Wiley, and went back into the house,
whereupon Death Valley closed the door.

"Yes," whispered Charley, "it's in the air--there's electricity
everywhere. But what about that option?"

Wiley sat at the table, his eyes big with anger, his jaw set hard
against the pain, and then he reached for his pen.

"All right, Charley," he said, "but don't you let 'em kid you--you've
got the best business head in town."

CHAPTER XI

A TOUCH

The wrath of a man who is slow to anger cannot lightly be turned aside
and, though Virginia drooped her lashes, the son of Honest John brushed
past her without a word. She had followed him gratuitously to Death
Valley's cabin and seriously questioned his good faith; and then, to fan
the flames of his just resentment, she had suggested that he was telling
an untruth. He had told her--and it seemed impossible--that Blount had
offered him half the Paymaster, on shares; but the following morning,
without a word of warning, the Paymaster Mine shut down. The pumps
stopped abruptly, all the tools were removed, and as the foreman and
miners who had been their boarders rolled up their beds and prepared to
depart, the high-headed Virginia buried her face in her hands and
retired to her bedroom to weep. And then to cap it all that miserable
assayer sent in his belated report.

"Gold--a trace. Silver--blank. Copper--blank. Lead--blank. Zinc--blank."

The heavy white quartz which Wiley had made so much of was as barren as
the dirt in the street. It had absolutely no value and--oh, wretched
thought--he had offered to buy her stock out of charity! Out of the
bigness of his heart--and then she had i