nsulted him and accused him of
robbing Death Valley Charley! In the light of this new day Death Valley
was a magnate, with his check for two hundred dollars, and Virginia and
her mother must either starve on in silence or accept the bounty of the
Holmans. It was maddening, unbelievable--and to think what he had
suffered from her, before he had finally gone off in a rage. But how
sarcastic he had been when she had accused him of robbing Charley, and
of standing in with Blount! He had said things then which no woman could
forgive; no, not even if she were in the wrong. He had led her on to
make unconsidered statements, smiling provokingly all the time; and
then, when she had doubted that Blount had offered him the mine, he had
said, "Well, ask him!" and shut the door in her face! And now, without
asking, the question had been answered, for Blount had closed down the
mine in despair and gone back to his bank in Vegas.

The Paymaster was dead, and Keno was dead; and their eight hundred
dollars was gone. All the profits from the miners which they had counted
upon so confidently had disappeared in a single day; and now her mother
would have to pawn her diamonds again in order to get out of town.
Virginia paced up and down, debating the situation and seeking some
possible escape, but every door was closed. She could not appeal to
Wiley, for she knew her stock was worthless, and her hold on his
sympathies was broken. He was a Yankee and cold, and his anger was
cold--the kind that will not burn itself out. When he had loved her it
was different; there was a spark of human kindness to which she could
always appeal; but now he was as cold and passionless as a statue; with
his jaws shut down like iron. She gave up and went out to see Charley.

Death Valley was celebrating his sudden rise to affluence by a resort to
the flowing bowl and when Virginia stepped in she found all three
phonographs running and a two-gallon demijohn on the table. Death Valley
himself was reposing in an armchair with one leg wrapped up in a white
bandage and as she stopped the grinding phonographs and made a grab for
the demijohn he held up two fingers reprovingly.

"I'm snake-bit," he croaked. "Don't take away my medicine. Do you want
your Uncle Charley to die?"

"Why, Charley!" she cried, "you know you aren't snake-bit! The
rattlesnakes are all holed up now."

"Yes--holed up," he nodded; "that's how I got snake-bit. It was fourteen
years ago, this mo