"Well, you'll be more surprised," he said, nodding grimly, "when I show you a piece of the ore. I sold that last lot to a jeweler in Los Angeles for twenty-four dollars an ounce, quartz and all--and pure gold is worth a little over twenty. Talk about your jewelry ore! Wait till I show this in Blackwater and watch them saloon-bums come through here. Too lazy to go out and find anything for themselves--all they know is to follow some poor guy like me and rob him of what he finds. What's the news from down below?" "Oh, nothing," answered Billy, and stood watching him doubtfully as he unsaddled and turned out his gaunted mules. His new black hat was sweated through already and his clothes were salt-stained and worn, but it was the look in his eye even more than his clothes which convinced her he had had a hard trip. He was close-mouthed and grim and the old rollicking smile seemed to have been lost beneath a two weeks' growth of beard. Perhaps she had done wrong to speak of the dog first, but she knew there was something behind. "Did you have a fight with Mr. Lynch?" she asked at last, and he darted a quick glance and said nothing. "Because when he went through here," she went on finally, "he seemed to be awful quarrelsome." "Yes, he's quarrelsome," admitted Wunpost, "but so am I. You wait till I tangle with him, sometime." "You're hungry!" she declared, still gazing at him fixedly, and he gave way to a twisted grin. "How'd you guess it?" he inquired; but she did not tell him, for of course they were supposed to be friends. Yes, good friends, and more--she had let him kiss her once, but now he seemed to have forgotten it. He ate supper greedily and went back to the corral to sleep, and in the morning he was gone. The early-risers at Blackwater, out to look for their burros or to get a little eye-opener at the saloon, were astonished to see his mules in the adobe corral and Wunpost himself on the street. He was reputed to be in hiding from Pisen-face Lynch, who had been inquiring for him for over a week; and the news was soon passed to Lynch himself, for Blackwater had a grudge against Wunpost. He had made the town, yes, in a manner of speaking--for of course he had discovered the Willie Meena Mine and brought in Eells and the boomers--but never to their knowledge had he spoken a good word of them, or of anything else in town. He came swaggering down their streets as if he owned the place, or had enough money to buy it--and besides, he had led them on two disastrous stampedes in which no one had even located a claim. And the Stinging Lizard Mine was salted! Hence their haste to tell Lynch and the malevolent zeal with which they maneuvered to bring them together.