"I knew it!" she cried. "Ever since that Wiley Holman----" "Now, you hush up!" returned Virginia, flushing angrily. "You don't know what you're talking about!" "Well, if I don't know I can guess; but I never thought a Huff----" "Oh, you make me tired!" exclaimed Virginia, spitefully. "I'm staying here to watch that mine." "That--mine!" The Widow repeated it slowly and her eyes opened up big with triumph. "Virginia, do you mean to say you got the best of that whipper-snapper and----" "No, nothing of the kind! No! Can't you hear me? Oh, Mother, you'd drive a person crazy!" "I--see!" observed the Widow and stood nodding her head as Virginia went on with her protests. "Oh, my Lord!" she burst out, "and I put up all my stock for a measly eight hundred dollars! That scoundrelly Blount--I saw it in his eye the minute I mentioned my stock! He's tricked me, the rascal; but I'll fool him yet--I'll pay him back and get my stock!" "You'll pay him back? Why, you've spent half the money to redeem your jewels and the diamonds!" "Well, I'll pawn them again. Oh, it makes me wild to think how that rascal has tricked me!" "But, Mother," protested Virginia, "_he_ hasn't done any work yet. They haven't made any strike at the mine. Why not let it go until they pump out the water and really find some ore? And besides, how could Wiley know anything about it? He's never been down the shaft." "But--why you told me yourself----" "I never told you anything!" burst out Virginia tearfully. "You just jump at everything like a flea. And now you'll tell everybody, and Wiley'll say I did it, and----" "Virginia Huff!" cried her mother, dramatically, "are you in love with that--thief?" "He is not! No, I am not! Oh, I wish you'd quit talking to me--I tell you he never told me _anything_!" "Well, for goodness sake!" exclaimed the Widow pityingly, and stalked off to think it over. "You, Charley!" she exclaimed as she found Death Valley on the gallery pretending to nail up a box, "you leave those things alone. Well, that's all right; we've changed our minds and now we're going to stay." "That's good," replied Charley, laying his hammer aside, "I've been telling 'em so for days. It's coming everywhere; all the old camps are opening up, but Keno will beat them all." "Yes, that's right," assented the Widow absently, and as she bustled away to begin her unpacking, Death Valley looked at Heine and leered. "Didn't I tell you!" he crowed and, scuttling back to get his six-shooter, he went out and began re-locating claims. That was the beginning. The real rush came later when the pumps began to throb in the Paymaster. A stream of water like a sheet of silver flowed down the side of the dump and as if it's touch had brought forth men from the desert sands, the old-timers came drifting in. Once more the vacant sidewalks resounded to the thud of sturdy hob-nailed boots; and along with the locaters came pumpmen and miners to sound the flooded depths of the Paymaster.