"They ain't nobody," grinned Wunpost, "and that's just the point--I told you I'd come back with his scalp!" "Yes, but what about _us_?" she clamored accusingly, "who's going to pay for the road and all? Oh, I knew all the time that you'd never forgive me, and now you've just ruined everything." "Never asked me to forgive you," defended Wunpost stoutly, "but I don't mind admitting I was sore. It's all right, of course, if you think you can play the game--but I never thought you'd rob a _friend_!" "But you dared me to!" she cried, "and didn't I offer it for almost nothing, just to keep you from getting killed? And then, after I'd done everything to get back your contract you didn't even say 'Thanks!'" "No, sure not," he agreed, "what should I be thanking _you_ for? Did I ask you to get back my grubstake? Not by a long shot I didn't--what I wanted was my mine, and you turned around and sold it to Eells. Well, where's your friend now, and his yeller dog, Lapham? Skally-hooting across the desert for Mexico!" "And isn't my contract any good? Won't the bank take it, or anybody? Oh, I think you're just--just hateful!" "You bet I am, kid!" he announced with a swagger, "that's my long suit, savvy--hate! I never forgive an enemy and I never forget a friend, and the man don't live that can _do_ me! I'll git him, if it takes a thousand years!" "Oh, there you go," she sighed, dusting her desk off petulantly, and then she bowed her head in thought. "But I must say," she admitted, "you have done what you said. But I thought you were just bragging at the time." "They _all_ did!" he beamed, "but I've showed 'em, by grab--they ain't calling me a blow-hard now. These Blackwater stiffs that wanted to run me out of town are coming around now to borrow five. They took up with a crook, just because he boosted for their town, and now they're left holding the sack. But if they'd listened to me they wouldn't be left flat, because I told 'em I was after his hide. And say, you should've seen him, when I came into his bank and shoved that big check under his nose! He knowed what I was thinking and he never said: 'Boo!' I showed him whether I knew how to write!" He laid back and grinned broadly and Wilhelmina smiled, though a wistful look had crept into her eyes. "Then I suppose," she said, "you're always going to hate _me_, because of course I did steal your mine. But now I'm glad it's gone, because I wasn't happy a minute--do you think you can forgive me, sometime?" She glanced up appealingly but his brows had come down and he was staring at her fiercely. "Gone!" he roared, "your mine ain't gone! Ain't you ever read that contract we framed up? Well, the mine reverts to you the first time a payment isn't made or _if the buyer becomes a fugitive from justice_! Yeh, my friend slipped that in along with the rest of it, about death or an Act of God. Say, that's what you might call head work!"