"Right!" thundered Wunpost, "where do you get this 'right' stuff? Have you lived up this canyon all your life? Well, you wait until tomorrow, when the rush is on, and I'll show you how much _right_ there is in mining! You come down to the mine and I'll show you a bunch of mugs that would rob you of your claim like _that_! I'm going to be there, myself, and I'm going to borrow that pistol that you stuck in my ribs the other night; and the first yap that touches a corner or crosses my line I'll make him hard to catch. And then will come the promoters, with their diamonds and certified checks, and they'll offer you millions and millions; but you stay with me, kid, if they offer you the sub-treasury, because they'll clean you if you ever sign up. Don't sign nothing, see--and don't promise anything, either; and I'll tell you about _me_, I'll do anything for a friend--but that's as far as I go. They ain't no right and wrong, as far as I'm concerned. I'm like a danged Injun, I'll keep my word to a friend no matter how the cards fall; but if that friend turns against me I'll scalp him like _that_, and hang his hide on the fence! So now you know right where you'll find me!" "Well, all right," retorted Billy, whose Scotch blood was up, "and I'll tell you right where you'll find _me_. I'll stay with my friends whether they're right or wrong, but I'll never do anything dishonest. And if you don't like that you can take back your claim because----" "Sure I like it!" cried Wunpost, laughing and patting her hand, "that's just the kind of a friend I want. But all the same, Billy, this is no Sunday School picnic--it's more like a dog fight we're going to--and the only way to stand off that bunch of burglars is to hit 'em with anything you've got. You've got to grab with both hands and kick with both feet if you want to win in this mining game; and when you try to fight honest you're tying one hand behind you, because some of 'em won't stop at murder. Eells and Flip Flap and their kind don't pretend to be honest, they just get by with the law; and if you give 'em the edge they'll soak you in the jaw the first time you turn your head." "Well, I don't care," returned Billy, "my father is honest and nobody ever robbed him of his claim!" "Hooh! Who wants it?" jeered Wunpost arrogantly. "I'm talking about a real mine. Your old man's claims are stuck up in a canyon where a flying machine couldn't hardly go and about the time he gets his road built another cloudburst will come along and wash it away. Oh, don't talk to me, I _know_--I've been all along those peaks and right down past his mine--and I tell you it isn't worth stealing!" "And I've been up there, too, and helped pack out the ore, and I tell you you don't know what you're talking about!" Billy's eyes flashed dangerously as she sprang up to face him and for a minute they matched their wills; then Wunpost laughed shortly and stepped out into the open where the sun was just topping the mountains.