"Now listen, kid," he said. "Do you know who I am? Well, I'm John C. Calhoun, the man that discovered the Wunpost Mine and put Southern Nevada on the map. I'm no crazy man; I'm a prospector, as good as the best, if I am playing to a little hard luck. Yes sir, I located the Wunpost and started that first big rush--they came pouring into Keno by the thousands; but when I show 'em this rock there won't be anybody left--they'll come across Death Valley like a sandstorm. They'll come pouring down that wash like a cloudburst in July and the whole doggoned country will be located. Don't you want to be in on the strike? I'm giving you a chance, and you'll never have another one like it. All I ask is this mule, and your canteen and the grub, and I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll give you half my claim, and I'll bet it's worth millions, and I'll bring back your mule to boot!" "Oh, will you?" exclaimed the boy and was scrambling swiftly down when he stopped with one hand on the horn. "Does--does it make any difference if I'm a girl?" he asked with a break in his voice, and John C. Calhoun started back. He looked again and in the desert moonlight the boyish face seemed to soften and change. Tears sprang into the dark eyes and as she hung her head a curl fell across her breast. "Hell--no!" he burst out hardly knowing what he said, "not as long as I get the mule." "Then write out that notice for Wilhelmina Campbell--I guess that's my legal name." "It's a right pretty name," conceded Calhoun as he mounted, "but somehow I kinder liked Billy." CHAPTER II THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS Standing alone in the desert, with her face bared to the moonlight and her curls shaken free to the wind, Wilhelmina smiled softly as she gazed after the stranger who already had won her heart. His language had been crude when he thought she was a boy, but that only proved the perfection of her disguise; and when she had asked if it made any difference, and confessed that she was a girl, he had bridged over the gap like a flash. "Hell--no!" he had said, as men oftentimes do to express the heartiest accord; and then he had added, with the gallantry due a lady, that Wilhelmina was a right pretty name. And tomorrow, as soon as he had staked out his claim--their claim--he was coming back to the ranch!