Brooke stared at him, divided between indignation and appreciation of his assurance. "Yes," he said, drily, "several, and one of them is quite sufficient by itself." "Figure it out," said the other. "I tell you Saxton can't make our time over the high trail, though it's a better road. Now that one of us will get there first is a sure thing, but it's quite as certain it can't be both, and I'd be content with half of what you bluff out of Devine. That's reasonable." Brooke felt his face grow a trifle hot, though he recognized that it was not astonishing the man should credit him with the purpose he had certainly been impelled by at their last meeting. "I can't make a deal with you on any terms," he said. "Ride on, or pull your horse out of the trail." "I guess that wouldn't suit me," said the other man, and when Brooke had his foot in the stirrup, suddenly swung up his hand. Then there was a flash and a detonation, and the horse plunged. The flash was repeated, and while Brooke strove to clear his foot of the stirrup, the beast staggered and fell back on him. It, however, rolled and struggled, and, for his foot was free now, he contrived to drag himself away. When he was next sensible of anything, he could hear a very faint thud of hoofs far up the climbing trail, and, after lying still for several minutes, ventured to move circumspectly. He felt very sore, but all his limbs appeared to be in their usual places, and, rising shakily, he found, somewhat to his astonishment, that he could walk. The horse was evidently dead, but there was, he remembered, a ranch not very far away, and a certain probability of the other man still breaking one of his own limbs or his horse's legs, for the trail was rather worse than trails usually are in that country. Brooke accordingly decided to hobble on to the ranch, and somehow accomplished it, though the man who opened the door to him looked very dubious when he asked him for a horse. "The only beast I've got isn't worth much, but you don't look up to taking him in over the lake trail," he said. He, however, parted with the horse, and hove Brooke into the saddle, while the latter groaned as he rode away. One arm and one leg were stiff and aching, and at every jolt his back hurt him excruciatingly, but a few hours later he rode, spattered with mire and slushy snow, into a little wooden town, and had afterwards a fancy that somebody offered to lift him down. He was not sure how he got out of the saddle, but a man he recognized took the horse, and he proceeded, limping stiffly, with his wet clothes sticking to his skin, to the Crown mining office. The recorder, who appeared to be a young Englishman, looked hard at him when he came in, and then pointed to a chair. "You may as well sit down. If my surmises are correct, there is no great need for haste," he said. Brooke's face, which was a trifle grey, grew suddenly set. "Some one else has already recorded a new claim on the Canopus?" he said.