103“You ought to be ashamed,” said Charley reprovingly and went out to hunt up his burros. Virginia lingered about, looking off across the desert at the road down which Wiley had sped, and at last she bowed her head. Those last words of Charley’s still rang in her ears and when, towards evening, he started off down the road she watched him out of sight.
It was a long, dry road, this highway to Vegas, but twenty miles out, at Government Wells, there was water, and a good place to camp. Charley stopped there that night, and for three days more, until at last in the distance he saw Wiley’s white racer at the tip of a streamer of dust. He went by like the wind but when he spied Charley he slowed down and backed up to his camp.
“Hel-lo there, Old Timer,” he hailed in surprise, “what are you doing, away out here?”
“Oh, rambling around,” responded Charley airily, waving his hand at the world at large. “It’s good for man to be alone, away from them scolding women.”
The shadow of a smile passed over Wiley’s bronzed face and then he became suddenly grim.
“Bum scripture, Charley,” he said, nodding shortly, “but you may be right, at that. What’s the excitement around beautiful Keno?”
“I don’t know,” lied Charley. “Ain’t been in town since you was there, but she was sure booming, then. Say, I’ve got some stock in that Paymaster Mine that I might let you have, for cash. 104I’m burnt out on the town–they’s too many people in it–I’m going back to the Ube-Hebes.”
“Well, take me along, then,” suggested Wiley, “and we’ll bring back a car-load of that gold. Maybe then I could buy your stock.”
“No, you buy it now,” went on Charley insistently. “I’m broke and I need the money.”
“Oh, you do, eh?” jested Wiley. “Still thinking about that wedding trip? Well, I may need that money myself.”