On the following morning news arrived in Goldite that temporarily dimmed the excitement attendant upon stories of the “Laughing Water” property and the coming stampede to the Indian reservation.

Matt Barger and three others of the convicts, still uncaptured, had pillaged a freight team, of horses, provisions, and arms, murdered a stage driver, robbed the express of a large consignment of gold, and escaped as before to the mountains.

Two separate posses were in pursuit.  Rewards aggregating ten thousand dollars were offered for Barger, dead or alive, with smaller sums for each of his companions.  Their latest depredations had occurred alarmingly close to the mining camp, from which travel was becoming hazardous.

The gold theft was particularly disquieting to the Goldite mining contingent.  Dangers beset their enterprises in many directions at the very best.  To have this menace added, together with worry over every man’s personal safety in traveling about, was fairly intolerable.  The inefficient posses were roundly berated, but no man volunteered to issue forth and “get” Matt Barger—­either alive or as a corpse.

The man who arrived with the news was one of Van’s cronies, Dave, the little station man whom Beth had met the morning of her coming.  He was here in response to a summons from Van, who thought he saw an opportunity to assist his friend to better things.  Everything Dave owned he had fetched across the desert, including both the horses that Beth and Elsa once had ridden.  The station itself he had sold.  He had launched forth absolutely on Van’s new promises, burning all his bridges, as it were, behind him.

Van came down to meet him.  He had other concerns in Goldite, some with Culver, the Government representative, and others a trifle more personal, and intended to combine them all in one excursion.

No sooner had he appeared on the street, after duly stabling “Suvy” at the hay-yard, than a hundred acquaintances, suddenly transformed into intimate friends, by the change in his fortunes, pounced upon him in a spirit of generosity, hilarity, and comaraderie that cloyed not only his senses, but even his movements in the camp.

He was dragged and carried into four saloons like a helpless, good-natured bear cub, strong enough to resist by inflicting injuries, but somewhat amused by the game.  Intelligence of his advent went the rounds.  The local editor and the girl he had addressed as “Queenie,” on the day of the fight in the street, were rivals in another joyous attack as he escaped at last to proceed about his own affairs.

The editor stood no chance whatsoever.  Van had nothing to say, and said so.  Moreover, Queenie was a very persistent, as well as a very pretty, young person, distressingly careless of deportment.  She clung to Van like a bur.

“Gee, Van!” she cried with genuine tears in her eyes, “didn’t I always say you was the candy?  Didn’t I always say I’d give you my head and breathe through my feet—­day or night?  Didn’t I tell ’em all you was the only one?  You’re the only diamonds there is for me—­and I didn’t never wait for you to strike it first.”