Wilhelmina bowed her head and blushed painfully beneath her curls and then she turned away. "I don't sell kisses," she said, and when he saw she was offended he put aside his arrogant ways. "No, I know, kid," he said, "you were just glad to see me--but why can't you be glad all the time? Ain't I the same man? Well, you ought to be glad then, if you see me coming back again." "But somebody might kill you!" she answered quickly, "and then I'd be to blame." "They're scared to try it!" he boasted. "I've got 'em bluffed out. They ain't a man left in the hills. And besides, I told Eells I wouldn't go near the mine until he came through and sold me that contract. They's nobody watching me now. And you can take the ore, if you should happen to win, and build your father a road." She straightened up and gazed at him with her honest brown eyes, and at last the look in them changed. "Well, _I_ don't care," she burst out recklessly, "and besides, you're not going to win." "Yes I am," he said, "and I want that kiss, too. Here, pup!" and he whistled to his dog. "Oh, you can't take Good Luck!" she objected quickly. "He's my dog now, and I want him!" She pouted and tossed her pretty head to one side, and Wunpost smiled at her tyranny. It was something new in their relations with each other and it struck him as quite piquant and charming. "Well, all right," he assented, and Billy hid her face; because treachery was new to her too. CHAPTER XXV THE CHALLENGE If love begets love and deceit begets deceit, then Wunpost was repaid according to his merits when Wilhelmina laid claim to his dog. She did it in a way that was almost coquettish, for coquetry is a form of deceit; but in the morning, when he was gone, she put his dog on his trail and followed along behind on her mule. And this, of course, was rank treachery no less, for her purpose was to discover his mine. If she found it, she had decided in the small hours of the night, she would locate it and claim it all; and that would teach him not to make fun of honest poverty or to try to buy kisses with gold. Because kisses, as she knew, could never be true unless they were given for love; and love itself calls for respect, first of all--and who can respect a boaster?