t she had a shrewish mother who was bent upon ruining
her life? Had he not endured abuse and suffered grievous wounds before
he had asserted his rights? And with Virginia herself, when had there
ever been a time when he had forgotten his lover's part--except on that
last day, when he had turned like a trodden worm and protested his right
to live? And yet she blamed him for all her misfortunes and for every
day that she slaved; and even took the stock which he had returned as a
peace-offering and hurled it in his face!

Wiley's lips set grimly as he gazed at the certificates for which men
had striven and died. There were some from her father, transferred on
her birthdays when the stock was around thirty and forty; and others
from old prospectors like Henry Masters, who had left it to Virginia
when they died. She had sent it to him by Charley, out of shame for her
harsh words, and he had bought it for four hundred dollars, half the
money that he had in the world. Those had been happy days, in spite of
the anxiety, for he had made the sacrifice for her; and to prove his
devotion--and make a peace-offering against the explosion that was bound
to come--he had given the stock back to Virginia. That was when he was a
prospector, doing business on a shoe-string, a racing car and a diamond
ring; but now when he had made his _coup_ and could write his check
for thousands she threw the stock back in his face.

The stock had a value now for, under the terms of the bond and lease,
one-tenth of the net mill returns were automatically withheld and turned
in to the company as royalty; and if for any reason he failed to meet
the payment when the fifty thousand-dollar option expired, then this
stock and all Paymaster stock would take a sudden jump to five or ten
dollars a share. And the stock was hers--she had received it from her
father when he was the mining king of the West, and from old man Masters
when he was dying in the cabin where she had helped to care for him for
months--yet she would not accept it as a gift. Wiley pondered a long
time and then, as Christmas drew near, he sent for Death Valley Charley.

"Charley," he began, when he came up that night, "did I understand you
to say one time that you were acting as a kind of guardian to Virginia?
Well, now here's a bunch of stock that you sold to me once when you were
slightly off your cabeza. There's over twelve thousand shares and all
you asked was four hundred dollars, when yo