"Well, I didn't mean that," apologized Wilhelmina hastily, "but--well anyhow, I _know_ he's got a mine! Because he showed me a piece of quartz that he'd carried all the way, and he must have had a reason for _that_. It was just moonlight, of course, and I couldn't see the gold, but I know that it was quartz." "Ah, Billy, my little girl," returned Dusty indulgently, "you don't know the boy like I do. And the world is full of quartz but you don't find a mine right next to a well-worn trail. Have you got that piece of rock? Well now you see the p'int--he took it _away_! Would he do that if his mine was on the square?" "Well, I don't know why not," answered Billy at last and then she bowed her head and turned away. They gazed after her pityingly as she ran along the ditch and up to the mouth of her tunnel, but Billy did not stop till she had threaded its murky passageway and come out at her gate of dreams. It was from there that she had seen him when he was lost in the Sink, and she knew her dream of dreams would come true. He was going to come back, he was going to bring her mule, and make her his partner in the mine. She looked out--and there was his dust! CHAPTER III DUSTY RHODES EATS DIRT Billy gazed away in ecstasy at the dust cloud in the distance, and at the white spot that was Tellurium, her mule; and when the rider came closer she skipped back through the tunnel and danced along the trail to the house. Dusty Rhodes was still there, describing in windy detail Wunpost's encounter with one Pisen-face Lynch, but as she stood before them smiling he sensed the mischief in her eye and interrupted himself with a question. "He's coming," announced Billy, showing the dimples in both cheeks and Dusty Rhodes let his jaw drop. "Who's coming?" he asked but she dimpled enigmatically and jerked her curly head towards the road. They started up to look and as the white mule rounded the point Dusty Rhodes blinked his eyes uncertainly. After all his talk about the faithless and cowardly Wunpost here he was, coming up the road; and the memory of a canteen which he had left strapped upon a pack, rose up and left him cold. Talk as much as he would he could never escape the fact that he had gone off with Wunpost's big canteen, and the one subject he had avoided--why he had not stopped to wait for him--was now likely to be thoroughly discussed. He glanced about furtively, but there was no avenue of escape and he started off down to the gate. "Where you been all the time?" he shouted in accusing accents, "I've been looking for you everywhere." "Yes, you have!" thundered Wunpost dropping down off his mule and striding swiftly towards him. "You've been lapping up the booze, over at Blackwater! I've a good mind to kill you, you old dastard!" "Didn't I tell you not to stop?" yelled Rhodes in a feigned fury. "You brought it all on yourself! I thought you'd gone back----"