“Look here, Dick,” he exclaimed, “I’ll give a month’s salary if you will let me take a chance and follow old Guadalupe. I’ve simply got to find out and locate that sand-bar in some mountain stream from which she brings in all this gold. This is the third time I’ve seen our friend Buck Ashley collect a grocery bill from the old squaw, and the whole business, gold nuggets and all, is getting on my nerves. Why, I dreamed about it for a week last time I saw her forking out whole handfuls of gold.” “Very well,” replied Willoughby, “if you want to take the chance, Jack, go ahead. But it is a mad project which will end in my expressing your remains back East or else planting you in the cemetery on the hill. It’s up to you to make your choice before you tackle the job. You certainly know what happened to four or five others who attempted to follow the old squaw. Each mother’s son of them was buried the next day.” “Oh, that’s ancient history,” Jack retorted. “Not such very ancient hist’ry,” remarked Tom Baker. “I myself saw young Bill McNab drilled through the heart with a bullet that seemed to come from nowhere. After that I’ll allow I wasn’t filled up with too much curiosity as to where Guadalupe hiked over the mountains.” “There was a regular sharp-shootin’ outfit,” concurred Buck Ashley. “And there wasn’t a sheriff in the country would have led a posse into that damned ambush,” Tom went on. “There wasn’t a sportin’ chance along that narrow ledge round which Guadalupe always disappeared. And with all them outlaws in the mountains!” “But the outlaws have been wiped out years ago,” persisted Jack Rover. “Mebbe,” said Tom Baker, sententiously. “You forget the White Wolf,” added Buck Ashley. “Which white wolf?” asked Jack. “I put that question before but got no answer.” “Both,” replied Tom. “To begin with I don’t believe that Don Manuel is dead at all. That was only a newspaper story. You may take it from me that the bandit won’t pass in his checks till he gets old Ben Thurston. I’m allowin’ as how Ben Thurston would quick enough give a thousand head of his fattest beeves just to rest easy in his mind on that score. He’ll find out, sure enough, some day.” “Yes, when the White Wolf finds him,” interjected the storekeeper with a terse emphasis. “What’s that old feud anyway?” queried Lieutenant Munson. “Tell me, Tom.”