"Oh, can I?" she cried and, reaching out for the money, she held it with tremulous hands. There were fifty thousand-dollar bills, golden yellow on the back and a rich, glossy black on the front; and others of smaller denominations, making fifty-two thousand in all. It was a fortune in itself, but in what it was to buy it was well worth over a million. "Aren't you afraid to trust me?" she asked at last, and when he smiled she hid it away. "All right," she said, "and as soon as I've paid it I'll call you up on the 'phone." She went out the next morning on the early stage and Wiley watched it rush across the plain. It was green as a lawn, that dry, treeless desert with its millions of evenly spaced creosote bushes; but as the sun rose higher it turned blood-red like an omen of evil to come. Many times before, in the glow of evening, he had seen the green change to red; but now it was ominous, with Stiff Neck George on the hill-top and Shadow Mountain frowning down behind. He paced about uneasily as the day wore on and at night he listened for the 'phone. She was to call him up, as soon as she had paid over the money; but it did not ring that night. The morning of the last day dawned fair and pleasant, with the fresh smell of dew in the air, and he awoke with a sense that all was well. Virginia was in Vegas and, when Blount came to his office, she would make the payment in his stead. There was no chance to fail, once she had found her man; and if Blount refused to accept it, which he could hardly do, she could simply leave the money with the court. There were no papers to confuse her, no forms to go through; Blount had made a legal contract to sell the property and she had a full power of attorney. All it called for was loyalty and faithfulness to her trust, and Wiley knew Virginia too well to think she would fail him now. She was proud and hot-headed, and she had fought him in the past; but, once she had given her word, she would keep her promise or die. As the sun rose higher he imagined her at the bank with the sheaf of bills hidden in her bosom, and Blount's surprise and palavering when he found he was caught and that his deep-laid plans had failed. He had schemed to catch Wiley between the horns of a dilemma, and either jump his mine when he went in to make the payment or force him to lose it by default. But, almost by a miracle, Virginia had appeared at the very moment when he was seeking a messenger; and by an even greater miracle, they had composed all their difficulties just in time for him to send her to town. It was like an act of Providence, an answer to prayer, if people any longer prayed; and, more, even, than the money and the joy of success, was the consciousness of Virginia's love. She had seemed so hostile, so distant and unattainable; but the moment that he forgot her and abandoned all hope she fluttered to his hand like a dove.