"Heh, heh!" chuckled Wunpost, "you keep right up with me, kid. Don't reckon I can give you any present. I was just thinking you might like to take a trip to Los Angeles, and see the bright lights and all--taking your mother along, and so forth--but it's Jail Canyon for you, for life. If this thousand dollar bill that you earned by saving my life is nothing but tainted money, all I can do is to tender a vote of thanks. It must be fierce to have a Scotch conscience." "You mind your own business," answered Billy shortly, and brushed away a furtive tear. A trip to Los Angeles--and new clothes and everything--and she really had earned the money! Yes, she had saved his life and enabled him to come back to dig up some more hidden gold. But it was stolen, and there was an end to it--she turned away abruptly, but he caught her by the hand. "Say, listen, kid," he said; "I may not be an angel, but I never go back on a friend. Now you tell me what you want and, no matter what it is, I'll go out and get it for you--honestly. You're the best friend I've got--and you sure look swell, dressed up in them women's clothes--but I want you to have a good time. I want you to go inside and see the world, and go to the theaters and all, but how'm I going to slip you the money?" Billy laughed, rather hysterically, and then she turned grave and her eyes looked far away. "All I want," she said at last, "is a road up Father's canyon--and I know he won't accept it from you. So let's talk about something else. Are you going back to your mine?" He sighed, then glanced up at the ridge and nodded his head mysteriously. "There's somebody after me," he said at last. "They follow me up now, every place. In town it's detectives, and out here on the desert it's Pisen-face Lynch and his gang. But I don't mind them--I'm looking for that feller that shot me in the leg last month. It wasn't Lynch--I've had him traced--and it wasn't none of those Shooshonnies; but there's some feller in these hills that's out after my scalp and I've come back to get him. And when I find him, kid, I'll light a fire under him that'll burn 'im off the face of the earth. I'm going to kill him, by grab, the same as I would a rattlesnake; I'm going to----" "Oh, please don't talk that way!" broke in Wilhelmina impatiently, "it gives people a bad impression. There isn't a man in Blackwater that isn't firmly convinced that you're nothing but a bag of hot air. Well, I don't care--that's just what they said!" "Ahhr!" scoffed Wunpost, "them Blackwater stiffs. They're jealous, that's what's the matter." "No, but don't talk that way," she pleaded. "It turns folks against you. Even Father and Mother have noticed it. You're always telling of the big things you're going to do----"