The official surveyor was a fat-cheeked, handsome man, with a silky brown beard, an effeminate voice, and prodigious self-conceit. He was pacing up and down the inside office, at the rear of the rough board building, when Van came in and found him. The horseman's business was one of maps and land-office data made essential to his needs by the new recording of the "Laughing Water" property as a placer instead of a quartz claim. He had drawn a crude outline of his holdings and in taking it forth from his pocket found the knife bought for Gettysburg in the way. He removed the weapon and placed it on the table near at hand. "There's so much of this desert unsurveyed," he said, "that no man can tell whether he's just inside or just outside of Purgatory." "So you come to me to find out?" Culver demanded somewhat shortly. "Do you tin-horn miners think that's all this office is for?" "Well, in my instance, I had to come to some wiser spirit than myself to get my bearings," answered Van drawlingly. "You can see that." "There are the maps." Culver waved his hand towards a drawer in the office table, and moved impatiently over to a window, the view from which commanded a section of the street, including the bank. Van was presently engrossed in a search for quarter sections, ranges, and townships. "Look here," said Culver, turning upon him aggressively, "what's this racket I hear about you taking the inside track with that stunning new petticoat in town?" Van looked up without the least suspicion of the man's real meaning. "If you are referring to that reckless young woman called Queenie----" "Oh, Queenie--rats!" interrupted Culver irritably. "You know who I mean. I guess you call her Beth." Van's face took on a look of hardness as if it were chiseled in stone. He had squared around as if at a blow. For a moment he faced the surveyor in silence. "You are making some grave mistake," he said presently in ominous calm. "Please don't make such an allusion as that again." "So, the shot went home," Culver laughed unctuously, turning for a moment from the window. "I thought it would. You know you couldn't expect to keep anything like that all to yourself, Van Buren. You're not the only ladies' man on the beach. And as for this clod of a Bostwick----" He had turned to look out as before, and grew suddenly excited. Beth was in view at the bank. "By the gods!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of tone, "she is the handsomest bit of confectionery on earth. If I don't win her----" His utterance promptly ceased, together with his abominable activities and primping in the window. Van, who did not know that this creature had been Beth's particular annoyance, had crossed the room without a sound and laid his grip on Culver's collar. "You cur!" he said quietly, and choking the man he flung him down against the floor and wall as if he had been the merest puppet.