“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.
188“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─”
“Well, don’t I do’em?” he demanded. “What did I ever say I’d do that I didn’t make good, in the end? Don’t you think I’m going to get this bad hombre–this feller that’s following me through the hills? Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If I don’t bring you his hair inside of a month–you 189 can have my mine and everything. But I’m going to git him, see? I’m going to toll him across the Valley, where he’ll have to come out into the open, and when I ketch him I’m going to scalp him. He’s nothing but a low-down, murdering assassin that old Eells or somebody has hired─”
“Oh, please!” she protested and his eyes opened big before they closed down in a sudden scowl.
“Well, I’ll show you,” he said and packed and rode off in silence.