He groaned and dropped the rock to take his leg in both hands, and then Virginia rushed to the rescue. "How badly are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling down beside him, but he jerked ungraciously away. "Go away and leave me alone!" he shouted to the world at large and the Widow took the hint to withdraw. Then in a series of frenzied curses Wiley stripped off his puttee and felt of his injured leg. It was wet with blood and two shot-holes in his shin-bone were giving him the most exquisite pain; the rest were just flesh-wounds where the buckshot had pierced his leggings and imbedded themselves in the muscles. He looked them over hastily by the light of a flashing lantern and then he rose up from the ground. "Gimme that gun for a crutch!" he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff, who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in silence. "All right, now," he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley, who had been patiently holding his lantern, "just show me the trail and I'll get out of camp before some crazy dastard ups and kills me." "That was Stiff Neck George," observed Charley mysteriously. "He's guarding the Paymaster for Blount." "Who--that fellow that was after me?" burst out Wiley in a passion as he hobbled off down the trail. "What the hell was he trying to do? The whole rotten mine isn't worth stealing from anybody. What's the matter with you people--are you crazy?" "Well, that's all right!" returned the Widow from the darkness. "You can't sneak in and jump _my_ mine!" "_Your_ mine, you old tarrier!" yelled Wiley furiously. "You'd better go to town and look it up. The whole danged works is mine--I bought it in for taxes!" "You--what?" cried the Widow, brushing Virginia and Charley aside and halting him in the trail. "You bought the Paymaster for _taxes_!" "Yes, for taxes," answered Wiley, "and got stung at that! Gimme eighty-three dollars and forty-one cents and you can have it back, with costs. But now listen, you old battle-ax; I've taken enough off of you. You went up on my property when I was making an inspection of it and made an attempt on my life; and if I hear a peep out of you, from this time on, I'll go down and swear out a warrant." "I didn't aim to kill you," defended the Widow, weakly. "I just tried to shoot you in the leg." "Well, you did it," returned Wiley, and, pushing; her aside, he limped on down the trail. The Widow followed meekly, talking in low tones with her daughter, and at last Virginia came up beside him. "Take him right to our house," she said to Charley, "and I'll nurse him until he gets well." "No, you take me to the Holman house!" directed Wiley, obstinately. "I guess we've got a house of our own."