Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1896-06-10
was managed" properly, when he

w DO htetAaSCa PAOpNAAJI "hOh AaC
learned Of her marriage.
"And don't come down this way from
Mulliner's, added the careful Ballan-
tyne There's All old mail tin about a
mile or so away from here, near the
worked ont alluvial patch. You can al
ways drop a letter in there for me.
Haughton's such good natured ass that
he'll play Mercury for you. Anyway,
I'll send him to look in the tin every
Sunday night"
That, SO far, was the history of Mr..
and Mrs. Ballantyne.
"Another duffing crushing" mutter-
ed Haughton as he stopped and placed
his hand into the bucket Of quicksilver
under the nozzle of the retort pipe
"What between reef that doesn't pan
out five pennyweights to the ton, and a
woman that pans out too rich, I'm sick
of the cursed placeP'
AS he stood up again and, hands ON
his hips, looked modify into the fire, a
woman came down the rough path lead
ing from Ballantyne's house to the bat
terry. Walking quickly across the light
ed space that interviewed between the
blacksmith's forge and the fire, she
placed a billy of tea on the brick furnace
wall and then turned her handsome
black browed, gypsylike face up to his.
This was Nell Lawson, the woman who
had "panned out too rich. :"
Here's your tea, Dick, /" she said
Thanks, I" he said, taking it from
her, and then, with quick look over
toward the battery, II wish you
wouldn't call me Dick when any of the
hands are about. Lawson might hear of
it, and don't want you to get into any
trouble over me-.
The black eyes sparkled and the
smooth, olive hued features flushed
darkly in the freight as she grasped
his arm.
"You liel' And she set her teeth. "a
lot you carel Do you think I'm silly?
Do you think as don't know that you
want to sling me and don't know how
to go about it?'' And she grasped his
arm savagely.
Haughton looked at her in gloomy
silence for few seconds Standing
there, face to face, they were SO alike
in features-he wiry, muscular, black
bearded and bronzed to the hue of an
Arab, and she tall, dark haired, with
! oval, passionate face-they might have
been taken for brother and sister.
She let his arm free, and then, being
only working miners wife, and pos
sessing no handkerchief, whipped her
apron to her eyes.
"You re id curp' she said
, chokingly. "1f it hadn't ha been for
you, I'd ha gone along all right wi
Bod and put up wi Twin in this place,
and now
Look here, Nell," said Haugbton,
drawing her away into the shadow Of
the ferge, "I'm a cur, as you say, but I'd
be worse cur to keep on this way.
You can't marry me, can your"
"You used to talk about our boltin-
oncei'' And she snapped out the last
word
Haughton tried to explain why the
"bolting'' SO trenchantly referred to
did not eventuate. He was stone broke.
Ballantyne was going to do his own
matchmaking at the battery, and it
would be cruel Of him to ask her to
share his fortunes. Here he began to
appreciate his leaning to morality.) If
she was a single girl, he would stay at
Mulliner's and fight it out with bad
luck for her sake, but they couldn't go
ON like this any longer. And the people
at Mulliner's were beginning to talk
about them, etc.
She heard him in silence and then
gave short, jarring laugh-the laugh
that ought to tell man that he is no
longer believed in by woman who has
! loved him.
II know" she said quietly. "You
want to get clear O. me. You re took up
with Kate Charming, the proper Miss
Charming that rides over here o. Sun
days to meet you on the sly"
At first he meant to undeceive her,
then he thought: What does it matter?
I'll be away from here in day or so,
and after I've gone she'll find I'm not
so base as she thought me, poor girlP'
So, looking away from her SO as to avoid
the dangerous light that cleaned in her
passionate eyes, he made the plunge.
That's it, Nell. I'm hard up and
desperate. If you were a free woman
She struck him on the mouth with
! her clinched hand-"I'll kill her first,
Dick Haughtonr and then left him.
A mile or SO from the battery, ON a
seldom used track that led to some
abandoned alluvial workings, a stained
and weather worn biscuit tin had been
nailed to an iron bark tree. In the pros
porous days of Mulliner's it had been
placed there by the diggers as a recep-
tacle for letters, and its location saved
the mailman long detour to their
camp. At present poor loving Kate
Claiming and Dick Haughton were the
only persons who ever looked into it.
After getting the station letters from
the landlord Of the Booming Nugget
Kate would ride through the bush and
come out ON the track just opposite
| Then hendinp down from her horse