“Well, all right,” he broke in, and as they stepped out into the open she slipped her hand into his.
290CHAPTER XXXII
A Huff
The Colonel was sitting in the shade of a wild grapevine rapping out a series of questions at Charley, but at sight of the young people coming back hand in hand, he paused and smiled understandingly.
“What now?” he said. “Is there a new earth and a new heaven? Ah, well; then Virginia’s trip was worth while. But Charley here is so full of signs and wonders that my brain is fairly in a whirl. The Germans, it seems, have made a forty-two centimeter gun that is blasting down cities in France; and the Allies, to beat them, are constructing still larger ones made out of tungsten that is mined from the Paymaster. Yes, yes, Charley, that’s all right, I don’t doubt your word, but we’ll call on Wiley for the details.”
He laughed indulgently and poured Charley out a drink which made his eyes blink and snap and then he waved him graciously away.
“Take your burros up the canyon,” he suggested briefly, and when Charley was gone he smiled. “Now,” he said, as Virginia sat down beside him, “what’s all this about the Paymaster and Keno?”
“Well,” began Virginia as Wiley sat silent, 291“there really was tungsten in the mine. Wiley discovered it first–he was just going through the town when he saw that specimen in my collection–and since then,–oh, everything has happened!”
“By the dog!” exclaimed the Colonel starting quickly to his feet. “Do you mean that Crazy Charley spoke the truth? Is the mine really open and the town full of people and─”
“You wouldn’t know it!” cried Virginia, triumphantly. “All that heavy, white quartz was tungsten!”