“Yes! One can! Wasn’t that all I had? And you robbed me before, you rascal!”
“I did not!” retorted Wiley, and as the old man looked him over he hesitated and lowered his gun.
“Say, who are you, anyway?” he asked at last and glanced swiftly at Wiley’s tracks in the sand. “Well–that’s all right,” he ran on hastily, “I see you aren’t the man. There was a renegade came through here on the twentieth of last July and 268stole everything I had. I trailed him, dad-burn him, clear to the edge of Death Valley–he was riding my favorite burro–and if it hadn’t been for a sandstorm that came up and stopped me, I’d have bored him through and through. He stole my rifle and even my letters, and valuable papers besides; but he went to his reward, or I miss my guess, so we’ll leave him to the mercy of hell. As for my tomatoes, you’re welcome, my friend; it’s long since I’ve had a guest.”
He held out his hand and advanced, smiling kindly, but Wiley stepped back–it was Colonel Huff.
269CHAPTER XXX
An Evening with Socrates
How the Colonel had come to be reported dead it was easy enough now to surmise. Some desperate fugitive, or rambling hobo miner seeking a crosscut to the Borax Mines below, had raided his camp in his absence; and, riding off on his burro, had met his death in a sandstorm. His were the tracks that the Indians had followed and somewhere in Death Valley he lay beneath the sand dunes in place of a better man. But the Colonel–did he know that his family had mourned him as dead, and bandied his stock back and forth? Did he know that the Paymaster had been bonded and opened up, and lost again to Blount? And what would be his answer if he knew the man before him was the son of Honest John Holman? Wiley closed down his lips, then he took the outstretched hand and looked the Colonel straight in the eye.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “that I can’t give you my name or tell you where I’m from; but I’ve got a bottle of whiskey that will more than make up for the loss of that can of tomatoes!”
270“Whiskey!” shrilled the Colonel and then he smiled benignly and laid a fatherly hand upon his shoulder. “Never mind, my young friend, what you have done or not done; because I’m sure it was nothing dishonorable–and now if you will produce your bottle we’ll drink to our better acquaintance.”
“I threw it away,” answered Wiley apologetically, “but it can’t be very far down the trail. I was short of water and lost, you might say, and–well, I guess I was a little wild.”