The two women followed the men outside and into the shady yard, where the trees hid completely what lay across the road and beyond the double row of poplars. Donny, leaning far forward and digging his bare toes into the loose soil for more speed, raced on ahead, anxious to see and hear all that took place. “If the boys don't stir up a lot of antagonism,” Baumberger kept urging Peaceful and Phoebe, as they hurried into the garden, “the matter ought to be settled without much trouble. You can get an injunction, and--” “The idea of anybody trying to hold our place for mineral land!” Phoebe's indignation was cumulative always, and was now bubbling into wrath. “Why, my grief! Thomas spent one whole summer washing every likely spot around here. He never got anything better than colors on this ranch--and you can get them anywhere in Idaho, almost. And to come right into our garden, in the right--and stake a placer claim!” Her anger seemed beyond further utterance. “The idea!” she finished weakly. “Well--but we mustn't let ourselves get excited,” soothed Baumberger, the shadow of him falling darkly upon Peaceful and Phoebe as he strode along, upon the side next the sun. Peppajee would have called that an evil thing, portending much trouble and black treachery. “That's where people always blunder in a thing like this. A little cool-headedness goes farther than hard words or lead. And,” he added cheeringly, “it may be a false alarm, remember. We won't borrow trouble. We'll just make sure of our ground, first thing we do.” “It's always easy enough to be calm over the other fellow's trouble,” said Phoebe sharply, irritated in an indefinable way by the oily optimism of the other. “It ain't your ox that's gored, Mr. Baumberger.” They skirted the double row of grapevines, picked their way over a spot lately flooded from the ditch, which they crossed upon two planks laid side by side, went through an end of the currant patch, made a detour around a small jungle of gooseberry bushes, and so came in sight of the strawberry patch and what was taking place near the lightning-scarred apricot tree. Baumberger lengthened his stride, and so reached the spot first. The boys were grouped belligerently in the strawberry patch, just outside a line of new stakes, freshly driven in the ground. Beyond that line stood a man facing them with a.45-.70 balanced in the hollow of his arm. In the background stood three other men in open spaces in the shrubbery, at intervals of ten rods or so, and they also had rifles rather conspicuously displayed. They were grinning, all three. The man just over the line was listening while Good Indian spoke; the voice of Good Indian was even and quiet, as if he were indulging in casual small talk of the country, but that particular claim-jumper was not smiling. Even from a distance they could see that he was fidgeting uncomfortably while he listened, and that his breath was beginning to come jerkily.