"Just you wait," he said, bulking big in the moonlight; "you wait till them Nevada boomers come. Things are dead over there--Keno and Wunpost are worked out; they'll hit for this camp to a man. And when they come, gentlemen, you want to be on your ground, because they'll jump anything that ain't held down. Just wait till they see this ore and then watch their dust--they'll stake the whole country for miles--but I've only got one claim, and I'm going to stay on it, and the first man that jumps it will get this." He slapped the big pistol that he had borrowed from Wilhelmina and nodded impressively to the crowd; and the next morning early he was over at the hole, getting ready for the rush that was to come. For the news of the strike had gone out from Blackwater on the stage of the evening before, and the moment it reached the railroad it would be wired to Keno and to Tonopah and Goldfield beyond. Then the stampede would begin, over the hills and down into Death Valley and up Emigrant Wash to the springs; and from there the first automobiles would burn up the ground till they struck Wild Rose Canyon and came down. Wunpost got out a hammer and drill, and as he watched for the rush he dug out more specimens to show. Wilhelmina stood beside him, putting the best of them into an ore-sack and piling the rest on the dump; and as he met her glad smile he laid down his tools and nodded at her wisely. "Big doings, kid," he said. "There's some rock that'll make 'em scream. D'ye remember what I said about Dusty Rhodes? Well, maybe I didn't call the turn--he did just exactly what I said. When he got to Blackwater he claimed the strike was his and framed it up with Whiskers to freeze us out. They thought they had us jumped--somebody knocked down my monument, and that's a State Prison offense--but I came back at 'em so quick they were whipped before they knew it. They acknowledged that the claim was mine. Well, all right, kid, let's keep it; you tag right along with me and back up any play that I make, and if any of these boomers from Nevada get funny we'll give 'em the gate, the gate!" He did a little dance and Billy smiled back feebly, for it was all very bewildering to her. She had expected, of course, a certain amount of lawless conduct; but that Dusty Rhodes, an old friend of their family, should conspire to deprive her of her claim was almost inconceivable. And that Wunpost should instantly seize him by the throat and force him to renounce his claims was even more surprising. But of course he had warned her, he had told her all about it, and predicted even bolder attempts; and yet here he was, digging out the best of his ore to give to these same Nevada burglars. "What do you give them all the ore for?" she asked at last. "Why don't you keep it, and we can pound out the gold?" "We have to play the game, kid," he answered with a shrug. "That's the way they always do."