In the stores with their barbaric display of coloured cloths, blankets, and beads, and their stacks of rifles, an army might have been equipped and armed. In and out the crowds came and went, buying and trading with a feverish haste. In the stock-yards—which seemed to be everywhere—by lantern light, men bargained for teams. There was the slow drawl of the Southerner; the nasal twang of the Yankee; the French of dark-skinned Canadian voyagers; the Spanish of swarthy Mexican packers; the frank and loudly expressed wonder of the men of the frontier, teamsters, and trappers, at the sudden invasion of their trading centre. Basil's reckoning at the tavern was settled, and the fur trader shouldered his pack and rifle, and they again sought the street. “We'll go back to camp by a nearer way,” said he, and he led them down a narrow alley. Here a rapidly driven wagon caused them to draw to one side. A negro was driving the team of mules, and following him came a two-wheeled cart. In it were two men, one of whom held a lantern in his lap. In the light it gave they could see that the handles of a pick and shovel protruded from between his knees. His companion rocked drunkenly at his side. Basil started back with an oath. “The cholera!” he cried. They were bearing a body to a grave on the plains, beyond the town and the camps of the gold-seekers. CHAPTER NINE MR. TUCKER took the south road out of Benson, his belief being that the runaways would drive across the State to Indiana. Events proved him so far right in this conjecture that he dined at the tavern where they had breakfasted, and supped where they had dined. Then, since they had gone on presumedly in the direction of Columbus, he mounted to his seat again and urged the fractious mare forward at the best pace which the condition of the roads rendered safe. He himself was now on the verge of exhaustion; and his desire to be revenged on the fugitives, alone sustained him; it was nothing that he ached in every bone and muscle, or that his old joints had stiffened so that as he swung forward over the rutted road, or splashed through mud-holes, he was tossed and jolted from side to side quite lacking the power to protect or save himself.