“Well, I’ll just bet you I can,” he responded deliberately. “What’ll you bet that I can’t turn the trick?”
“I haven’t got anything to bet,” retorted Wilhelmina angrily, “but if I did have, and it was right, I’d bet every cent I had–you’re always making big brags!”
“Yes, so you say,” replied Wunpost evenly, “but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put up a mule-load of ore against another sweet kiss–like you give me when I first came in.”
Wilhelmina bowed her head and blushed painfully beneath her curls and then she turned away.
“I don’t sell kisses,” she said, and when he saw she was offended he put aside his arrogant ways.
“No, I know, kid,” he said, “you were just glad 232to see me–but why can’t you be glad all the time? Ain’t I the same man? Well, you ought to be glad then, if you see me coming back again.”
“But somebody might kill you!” she answered quickly, “and then I’d be to blame.”
“They’re scared to try it!” he boasted. “I’ve got ’em bluffed out. They ain’t a man left in the hills. And besides, I told Eells I wouldn’t go near the mine until he came through and sold me that contract. They’s nobody watching me now. And you can take the ore, if you should happen to win, and build your father a road.”
She straightened up and gazed at him with her honest brown eyes, and at last the look in them changed.
“Well, I don’t care,” she burst out recklessly, “and besides, you’re not going to win.”