As Christmas day wore on and the sun came out gleaming, Wiley swung off down the trail and through the town. He was a big man now, the man who had saved Keno after ten years of stagnation and lingering death; and yet there were those who disliked him. They recited old stories of his shrewd dealings with Mrs. Huff, and with Virginia and Death Valley Charley; and if any were forgotten the Widow undoubtedly recalled them. She was a shrewish woman, full of gossip and backbiting, and she let no opportunity pass; so that even old Charley cherished a certain resentment, though he disguised it as solicitude for the Huffs. And so on Christmas day, as Wiley walked down the street, many greetings lacked a holiday heartiness. The front room of the Huff house was full of children and, as Wiley walked back and forth, he caught a glimpse of Virginia; but she did not come out and, after lingering around for a while, he climbed up the trail to the mine. He had caught but a glimpse, but it was clean-cut as a cameo--a classic head, eagerly poised; dark hair, brushed smoothly back; and a smile, for some neighbor's child. That was Virginia, high-headed and patrician, but kind to lame dogs and lost cats. She had invited in the children but he, Wiley Holman, who had loved her since she was a child, had been permitted to pass unnoticed. He wandered about uneasily, then went back to his office and began to run over his accounts. Over a hundred thousand dollars had passed through his hands in less than a calendar month and yet the long haul across the desert from Vegas had put him in the hole. Besides the initial cost of cables and timbers--and of a rock breaker and the concentrating plant--there was a charge of approximately twenty dollars a ton for every pound of supplies he hauled out. And, because of the war, all supplies were high and the machinery houses were behind with their orders; yet so eager were the buyers to get hold of his tungsten that they almost took it out of the bins. He was storing up the ore, preparatory to milling it and shipping only the concentrates; but if they could have their way they would wrest it from his hands and rush it to the railroad post haste. One mysterious buyer had even offered him a contract at seventy dollars a unit--three dollars and a half a pound! Wiley opened up his notebook and made a careful estimate of what the ore on the dump would bring and his eyes grew big as he figured. At seventy dollars a unit it would come to more than he owed; and pay for the mine, to boot. It was a stupendous sum to come so quickly, before the mine was hardly opened up; but when the mill was running and the mine was sending up ore--he smiled dizzily and shook his head. A profit like that, if it ever became known, would make his position dangerous. It was too much of a temptation for Blount and his jumpers, and blackleg lawyers with fake claims. They could get out injunctions and tie up the work until he lost the mine by default!