"Yes, that's right," agreed Wiley, "but if you want to make up for it, make 'em quit calling him 'Honest John'!" "No, indeed," cried the Colonel, his voice tremulous with emotion. "He shall still be called Honest John; and if any man doubts it or speaks the name fleeringly he shall answer personally to me. And now, about this stock--what was that, Virginia, that you were saying about my holdings?" "Why, Mother put them up as collateral on a loan, and Blount claimed them at the end of the first month." "All my stock? Well, by the horn-spoon--how much did your mother borrow? Eight--hundred? Eight hundred dollars? Well, that is enough, on the face of it--but never mind, I will recover the stock. It is certainly a revelation of human nature. The moment I am reported dead, these vultures strip my family of their all." "Well, I was one of them," spoke up Wiley bluntly, "but you don't need to blame my father. When I was having trouble with Mrs. Huff he wrote up and practically disowned me." "So you were one of them," observed the Colonel mildly. "And you had trouble with Mrs. Huff? But no matter?" he went on. "We can discuss all that later--now to return to this lawsuit, with Blount. Do I understand that you had an option on his entire four hundred thousand shares?" "For twenty thousand dollars," answered Wiley, "and he was glad to get it--but, of course, when I opened up that big body of tungsten, the stock was worth into millions. That is, if he could keep me from making both payments. He fought me from the start, but I put up the twenty thousand; and the clerk of the court is holding it yet, unless the case is decided. But Blount knew he could beat it, if he could keep me from buying the mine under the terms of my bond and lease; and now that he's in possession, taking out thirty or forty thousand every day, I'm licked before I begin. In fact, the case is called already and lost by default if I know that blackleg lawyer of mine." "But hire a good lawyer!" protested the Colonel. "A man has a right to his day in court and you have never appeared." "No, and I never will," spoke up Wiley despondently. "There's a whole lot to this case that you don't know. And the minute I appear they'll arrest me for murder and railroad me off to the Pen. No, I'm not going back, that's all." "But Wiley," reasoned the Colonel, "you've got great interests at stake--and your father will help you, I'm sure." "No, he won't," declared Wiley. "There isn't anybody that can help me, because Blount is in control of the courts. And I might as well add that I was run out of Vegas by a Committee appointed for the purpose." He rose up abruptly, rolling his sullen eyes on Virginia and the Colonel alike. "In fact," he burst out, "I haven't got a friend on the east side of Death Valley Sink." "But on the west side," suggested the Colonel, drawing Virginia to his side, "you have two good friends that I know----"