“Very well,” she murmured.  “I’m sorry to have made you all this trouble.”  She was not—­someways; she was lawlessly, inordinately glad.

The “trouble” for Van had been the most precious experience in all his life.

“It has been one wild spasm of delight,” he said in his dryest manner of sarcasm.  “But between us, Kent, I’m glad it’s no continuous performance.”

He went over the ridge, she following.  A moment later they were looking down upon the “Laughing Water” claim from that self-same eminence from which Searle Bostwick had seen it when he rode one day from the Indian reservation.

“This,” said Van, “is home.”

“Oh,” said the girl, and tears sprang into her eyes.

And a very home, indeed, it presently seemed, when they came to the shack, where Gettysburg, Napoleon, old Dave, and even Algy, the Chinese cook, came forth to give them cordial welcome.

Beth was introduced to all as Glenmore Kent—­and passed inspection.

“Brother of Miss Beth Kent,” said Van, “who honored us once with a visit to the Monte Cristo fiasco.  He’s been lost on the desert and he’s too done up to talk, so I want him to be fed and entertained.  And of the two requirements, the feed’s more important than the vaudeville show, unless your stunts can put a man to sleep.”

Algy and Gettysburg got the impromptu breakfast together.  The placer sluices outside were neglected.  Nobody wished to shovel sand for gold when marvelous tales might be exchanged concerning the wind storm that had raged across the hills the day before.

Indeed, as Van and Beth sat together at the board, regaling themselves like the two famished beings they were, their three entertainers proceeded to liberate some of the tallest stories concerning storms that mortal ever heard.

Napoleon and Gettysburg became the hottest of rivals in an effort to deliver something good.  Gettysburg furnished a tale of a breeze in the unpeopled wilds of Nebraska where two men’s farms, fully twenty miles apart, had undergone an astounding experience whereby a complete exchange of their houses, barns, and sheds had been effected by a cyclone, without the slightest important damage to the structures.

When this was concluded, Napoleon looked pained.  “I think you lie, Gett—­metaphorical speakin’!” he hastened to add.  “But shiver my bowsprit if I didn’t see a ship, once, ten days overdue, jest snatched up and blowed into port two days ahead of time, and never touched nothing all the way, I remember the year ’cause that was the winter ma had twins and pa had guinea pigs.”

“Wal,” drawled Dave, who had all this time maintained a dignified silence, “I’ve saw some wind, in my time, but only one that was really a leetle mite too obstreperous.  Yep, that was a pretty good blow—­the only wind I ever seen which blew an iron loggin’ chain off the fence, link by link.”

Napoleon paid Dave a compliment.  He said: