"How-dy, friends? Out early this morning, eh?" was the greeting the two amazed men received from the alert man at the tree. "Oh--oh, yes!" stammered one, plainly uneasy. "Hoh, it's Sam Brewster of Pebbly Pit, ain't it?" said the other, also confused in his manner. "Right you are, Hank. You see, when a man has to attend to the girls' gold mine, he has to be up right early to forestall the plans of any claim-jumpers who read the records at Oak Creek, yesterday, after we left there. That's why I got a posse to guard the place. I reckon, now, Hank, that your boss sent you-all on to help we-all up yonder, eh?" laughed Mr. Brewster, tantalizingly, as he recognized Hank to be the clerk at the filing office in Oak Creek. The man Hank laughed also, but a discordant note rang through his forced merriment. "We-all ain't claim-jumpers, Mr. Brewster, but it seemed so quare to find Old Montresor's Mine hed ben found again, that Ah sez to my pal, here, 'How'd you-all like to run up to the Slide and have a squint at that cave?' An' havin' a day off, he reckoned he'd enjy the trip. So here we-all are." "Yes--so Ah see! Here you-all are. And Ah says to my girls and the posse, says Ah: 'There'll be a lot of fools start off at night-fall, to hit this trail to the Slide just out of dern-fool curiosity to have a squint at Old Montresor's Mine. But human nature is human nature, girls,' says Ah, so when they get that squint, they may forget one of the Ten Commandments and want to covet their neighbor's property. And seeing how they have lost a good night's sleep through climbing the Top Notch Trail just to arrive early to have that squint, they will sort of feel justified in stealing an acre, or so, of gold-land. That would make them break another Commandment; so Ah felt it a duty, Hank, to send on a regiment in advance, to save the souls of such curious sightseers." Sam Brewster never changed a muscle of his serious face nor did his voice have the slightest sign of any other feeling than a reverent desire to help his fellow-man. But the two men knew Sam Brewster by experience as well as from hearsay. "Right-o! Hank told me what a good man you war," said the miner who accompanied Hank. But his shifty eyes belied the tone. Mr. Brewster smiled. "Yes. Ah did hate to see any one lose a good night's sleep and then get thus far only to be mistaken for claim-jumpers by the Sheriff's men up yonder. Of course, Hank and you-all aren't going to take such chances with the law." The miner glanced about uneasily but only saw two girls sitting on their horses a short distance away. Hank's face lowered, however, and he growled forth: "Ah don't see whose business it is whether we break the Sheriff's law or not." "Perhaps _you_ don't see--but Ah do, Hank. And when the Sheriff says, 'Keep the trail free from all trespassers till my posse can take charge,' you know me--Ah'll see that his orders are carried out," returned Mr. Brewster sternly, his pockets moving suspiciously.