"Well what _did_ you come back for?" demanded the Widow, triumphantly. "You must have figured to win somewhere." "Yes, I did," sighed Wiley, "but I was badly mistaken. All I want now is to get out of town." "Well, how about your father? That offer he made me! Has he backed out on that, too?" "No, he hasn't," answered Wiley, "my father keeps his word. You can get your money any time." "Well, of all the crazy crooked deals," the Widow began to rave, and then Wiley grabbed for the shotgun. "It may be crazy!" he shouted savagely, "but believe me, it isn't crooked. My father never did a crooked thing in his life, and you know it as well as I do; and if it wasn't that you're such a crook yourself----" "Wiley Holman!" raged the Widow, but he rose up on his crutch and shouldered his way out the door. "You're crazy!" he yelled, "the whole danged town's crazy. All except old Charley and me." He jerked his head and winked at Charley as he hobbled towards the street and Death Valley nodded gravely. There was a long, hateful silence; then the great motor roared out and the white racer rushed away across the desert. "Well, I don't care!" declared the Widow as she gazed after his dust and when the stage went out that day it took a lady passenger to Vegas. CHAPTER VII BETWEEN FRIENDS The madness of the Widow and Old Charley and Stiff Neck George was no mystery to Wiley Holman--it was the same form of mania which he encountered everywhere when he went to see men who owned mines. If he offered them a million for a ten-foot hole they would refuse it and demand ten million more, and if he offered them nothing they immediately scented a conspiracy to starve them out and gain possession of their mine. It was the illusion of hidden wealth, of buried treasure, which keeps half the mines in the West closed down and half of the rest in litigation; except that in Keno it seemed to be associated with gun-plays and a marked tendency towards homicide. So, upon his return from a short stay in the hospital he came up the main street silently, then stepped on the throttle and went through town a-smoking. But the Widow was out waiting for him in the middle of the road and, rather than run her down, he threw on both brakes and stopped. "Well, what now?" he inquired, frowning at the odor of heated rubber. "What's your particular grievance this trip?" He regarded her coldly, then bowed to Virginia and waved a friendly hand at Charley. "Hello, there, Death Valley," he called out jovially, as the Widow choked with a rush of words, "what's the news from the Funeral Range?" "Now, here!" exclaimed the Widow, advancing from the dust cloud, and glancing into the machine. "I want you to bring back that gun!" "I'm sorry, Mrs. Huff," he replied with finality, "but you'll have to get along without it. I turned it over to the sheriff, along with three buckshot and an affidavit regarding the shooting----"