"Very likely," she observed with no sign of regret, "but you should have attended the meeting." "Attended the meeting!" he repeated angrily. "I had something else to do! But is that any excuse for stopping my dividend and leaving me for Stoddard to clean?" "If you had come to the meeting," she responded evenly, but with an answering fire in her eyes, "and explained that you needed the money, I might have voted differently. As it was I voted for the smelter." "The smelter?" "Why, yes! Didn't you get my letter? We're going to build a smelter." "Oh, my Lord!" raved Rimrock, "did you let them fool you on that old, whiskered dodge? Sure I got your letter--but I never read it--the first few lines were enough! When I saw that you'd sold me out to Stoddard and gone and passed that dividend----" He paused--"Say, what's the matter?" She had forgotten at last her studied calm and was staring at him with startled eyes. "Why--didn't you read about Ike Bray?" "Ike Bray! Why, no; what's the matter with Ike? I just came in--on the freight." "Then you don't know that your claim has been jumped, and----" "_Jumped_!" yelled Rimrock, rising suddenly to his feet and making a clutch for his gun. "Yes--jumped! The Old Juan claim! The assessment work was never done." "Uh!" grunted Rimrock and sank back into his chair as if he had received a blow. "Not done?" he wailed staggering wildly up again. "My--God! Did L. W. go back on me, too? Didn't Hassayamp or anybody just think to go out there and see that the holes were sunk? Oh, my Lord; but this is awful!" "Yes, it is," she said, "but it wouldn't have happened if you had come out here yourself. And if you'd just read my letter instead of throwing it down the minute it didn't happen to please----" She stopped and winked back the angry tears that threatened to betray her hurt. "But now go on, and blame me for this--you blame me for everything else! Curse and swear and ask me what I was doing when all this came to pass! Ah, you expect more of others, Mr. Rimrock Jones, than you ever do of yourself; and now it will be me or poor L. W. that will come in for all the----" She broke down completely and buried her face in her arms while Rimrock stood staring like a fool. He was stunned, astounded; put beyond the power to listen, or reason, or think. All he knew was that some time, when he was away and while no one was there to befriend, Ike Bray his enemy had climbed up the butte and jumped the Old Juan claim. And all the time he was dallying in New York and playing his puny string at Navajoa the Old Juan claim and the mighty Tecolote had been left unguarded until they were jumped. "Where's L. W.?" he asked, coming suddenly from his trance; and she was sitting there, dry-eyed as before. "He's gone to the hospital. Bray shot him through the arm in a quarrel over the claim." "What? Shot L.W.? Well, the little shrimp! Just wait till I get to him with this!"