"What--what can be the trouble?" and Bud turned an anxious face to Thure. "They look mad; and they are coming straight toward us! What can have happened? Who are they after?" and he looked confusedly around. "Pull them off their horses!" "Hang them!" "The murderers!" The air was now filled with these and similar dreadful cries and men came running toward them from all directions; and, before the two boys could fairly realize what was happening, they found themselves the center of a seething crowd of excited and angry men, while a hundred armed hands were lifted threateningly toward them. "God in heaven, they are after us!" and Thure, too utterly astounded for the moment to realize the terrible nature of their situation, stared wildly into the surrounding angry faces. "What--what--" But, before he could put his stammering dumbfounded query, strong hands seized and jerked him roughly from his horse, while other hands at the same moment jerked Bud off his horse. One of the men who seized and pulled Thure from his horse was the big red-headed man, who had jumped up on top of the barrel and who had led the rush against the two boys. The moment Thure looked into his face he started back in horror. The man had a broken nose! At this moment and before either boy had collected his startled wits sufficiently to even offer a protest or to demand what this rough laying on of hands meant, a big man drove, like a sharpened wedge, through the crowd, and halted, with a hand tightly gripping the coat collar of each terrified lad. "What is the trouble?" he demanded authoritatively. "What have the young men done?" "The sheriff!" yelled someone in the crowd. "It's Turner, the sheriff!" "Yes, it's Turner, the sheriff," and the man tightened his grips on Thure's and Bud's collars. "Hands off. They are my prisoners now," and he turned a bit impatiently to the men, whose hands still had hold of the boys. "Well, what have they done?" "Murder!" "Murder!" yelled a dozen voices from the crowd. "Why, they are little more than boys!" and the sheriff turned his eyes in astonished horror on Thure and Bud. "Who accuses them?" "Me an' my pard do," and the big red-headed man with a broken nose, who had let go of Thure the moment the sheriff had him safely by the collar, stepped up in front of Turner. "We accuses them of murderin' an' robbin' John Stackpole, an old miner, who was on his way tew San Francisco from th' diggin's; an' what's more, we saw 'em do it with our own eyes; an' are ready tew swear tew th' same afore any judge an' jury. Ain't we Spike?" and he turned to a small man, with a pockmarked face, who was standing close to Bud. "True as preachin'," declared the small man. "With my own eyes I saw 'em knock th' miner off his hoss with their guns, an' then jump on him, an' run a knife through his heart, an' jerk off his gold-belt, an'--"