Passing the hotel on his way to Carney’s stable, Tex saw a running miner hurrying into it and in a moment an excited half-score of armed prospectors poured into the street, shouting and gesticulating. The little crowd picked up additions as it passed along the street and headed westward to strike the railroad at an angle. Some of them had partners with them and, when the tracks had been reached, quite a number turned and ran eastward toward their camps to pack up belongings and supplies. "Mental telepathy?" murmured Tex, watching them in some surprise. "Hank and Sinful are too clever rascals to tell anybody anything of value that they might know. Huh! That’s only a name, I guess, for subconscious weighing of facts subconsciously received: instinctive deductions from observations too vague to be definitely recognized. Instinct, I’m afraid you have more names than most people recognize. But it does beat the devil, at that! An animal does seemingly wonderful and impossible things because of the keenness of its scent, which passes our understanding; birds of prey have eyes nearly telescopic in power--but how the knowledge of this gold strike has spread about so quickly when everyone concerned in it naturally would be secretive, is too much for me. One thing is certain, however: it is known, and I have work to do, and quickly!" Omar welcomed him and soon was stringing the miles out behind him as smoothly almost as running water. There was no need to urge the animal at its best speed, for it was doing two miles to the miners’ one and easily would beat them to the scene of action. When he reached the second fork, Blascom was not at the hut and, leading the roan into a brush-filled hollow, the marshal took his rifle from its scabbard and went up to the scene of the miner’s operations. His hail was followed by a startled crouching on the prospector’s part and a rifle barrel leaped up to the top of the ditch. "Don’t shoot: It’s Jones," called the marshal, slowly emerging from his cover. "I come up to warn you that th’ rush has started. Hank an’ Sinful ought to get here in about half an hour, th’ others a little behind them. I’m aimin’ to be referee: th’ kind of a referee I once saw at a turf prize fight: he had to jump in an’ thrash both of th’ principals--an’ he did it, too. Get that bonanza cleaned out and cached yet?" Blascom swore as he stood up again. "Yes: but nobody’s goin’ to git _this_ without a fight! How th’ devil did they find out I’d struck it rich?" "Shore this claim is staked an’ located?" demanded Tex. "Yes; an’ there’s work enough done on it to make it stick. But how did they find out I’d struck it?"