and advised her from
the start not to sell; but--he looked again, for her dark orbs were
blazing and her lips were moving as with threats.

"You knew it all the time!" screamed the Widow in a frenzy, but Wiley
barely heard her. He heard her words, for they assaulted his ears in a
series of screeching crescendos, but it was the unspoken message from
the lips of Virginia that cut him to the quick. He had expected nothing
else from the abusive Widow; but certainly, after all the kindnesses he
had done her, he was entitled to something better from Virginia. Not
only had he warned her to hold on to her stock, at a time when one word
might ruin him; but he had bought it from Charley and then given it
back, to show how he valued her friendship. And yet now, while the
others were shouting with joy or rushing to stake out more claims, she
stood by the Widow and with cruel, voiceless words added her burden to
this paean of hate. And she looked just like her mother!

"You shut up, you old cat!" he burst out fiercely, as the Widow rushed
in to assault him. "Shut your mouth and get off my ground!" He drew back
his palm to launch a swift blow and then his hand fell slack. "Well,
holler then," he said, "what do I give a dam' whether you like the deal
or not? You'd be yammering, just the same. But it's lucky for you you're
a woman."

CHAPTER XV

THE GOD OF TEN PER CENT

It was the nature of the Widow to resort to violence in every crisis of
her life and at each fresh memory of the effrontery of Wiley Holman she
searched the empyrean for words. From the very start he had come to Keno
with the intention of stealing her mine. First it was his father, who
pitied her so much he was willing to buy her shares; then it was the tax
sale, and he had sneaked in at night and tried to jump the Paymaster;
then he had deceived her and stood in with Blount to make her sell all
her stock for a song; and then, oh hateful thought, he had actually sold
out to Blount for a hundred dollars, cash; only to put Blount in the
hole and buy the mine back again for the price of the ore on the dump!

The Widow poured forth her charges without pausing for breath or
noticing that her audience had fled, and as Wiley went on about his
business she raised her voice to a scream. The rest of the Kenoites, and
some of the workmen, were out staking the nearby hills; but whenever she
stopped she thought of some fresh duplicity which made reason totter on
its