38CHAPTER V
A Load of Buckshot
Since he had turned back, far out on the desert, and braved the storm to inspect the Paymaster Mine, Wiley Holman had met nothing but disaster; but as he lay on the ground with one leg full of buckshot he blamed it all on the Widow. Without warning or justification, without even giving him a chance, she had sneaked up and potted him like a rabbit; and now, as men came running to witness his shame, she gloried in her badness.
“Aha-ah!” she jeered, coming back to stand over him and Wiley reached for a stone.
“You old she-cat,” he burst out, “you say another word to me and I’ll bounce this rock off your head!”
He groaned and dropped the rock to take his leg in both hands, and then Virginia rushed to the rescue.
“How badly are you hurt?” she asked, kneeling down beside him, but he jerked ungraciously away.
“Go away and leave me alone!” he shouted to the world at large and the Widow took the hint to withdraw. Then in a series of frenzied curses Wiley stripped off his puttee and felt of his injured 39leg. It was wet with blood and two shot-holes in his shin-bone were giving him the most exquisite pain; the rest were just flesh-wounds where the buckshot had pierced his leggings and imbedded themselves in the muscles. He looked them over hastily by the light of a flashing lantern and then he rose up from the ground.
“Gimme that gun for a crutch!” he demanded of the Widow; and Mrs. Huff, who had been surveying her work with awe, passed over the shotgun in silence. “All right, now,” he went on, turning to Death Valley Charley, who had been patiently holding his lantern, “just show me the trail and I’ll get out of camp before some crazy dastard ups and kills me.”
“That was Stiff Neck George,” observed Charley mysteriously. “He’s guarding the Paymaster for Blount.”
“Who–that fellow that was after me?” burst out Wiley in a passion as he hobbled off down the trail. “What the hell was he trying to do? The whole rotten mine isn’t worth stealing from anybody. What’s the matter with you people–are you crazy?”