"That's the first thing I've heard that made me feel better," declared the prospector, as he swung one of the burro's heads back into the trail and hit the beast a friendly slap on the haunches to start it forward. "Whenever a man, like this old feller seems to be, gives me that kind of advice, I sit up and take notice." "Why--why, what do you know about him?" Dick asked, falling into the trail behind the pack animals, which had started forward with their slow jog trot, and ears swaying backward and forward as they went. "While you was gone," Mathews answered, "I had a long talk with a boy that came along and got friendly. You can believe boys, most of 'em. They know a heap more than men. They think out things that men don't. Kids are always friends with me; you know that. I reckon, from what I gathered, that this Presby man is about as hard and grasping an old cuss as ever worked the last ounce of gold out of a waste dump. He makes the men save the fags of the candles and the drips, so's he can melt 'em over again. He runs a company store, and if they don't buy boots and grub from him, they have to tear out mighty quick. He fired a fireman because the safety-valve in the boiler-house let go one day twenty minutes before the noon shift went back to work. If he says, 'Let the Cross alone,' I think it's because he wants it." "You couldn't guess who he is," Dick said, preparing to move. "Why? Do I know him?" "In a way. He's the man we saw the mob tackle, back there at the road house." Bill gave a long whistle. "So that's the chap, eh? Bully Presby! Well, if we ever run foul of him, we've got our work cut out for us. Things are beginnin' to get interestin'. 'I like the place,' as Daniel said when he went to sleep in the lion's den." They opened the gate through the barricade without any formality, and were well started up the inclined road of the Croix d'Or before they encountered the watchman who had given them so much trouble. As he came toward them, frowning, they observed that he had buckled a pistol round him as if to resist any intrusion in case it should be attempted without instructions. Dick handed him Presby's order, and the man read it through in surly silence; then his entire attitude underwent a swift change. He became almost obsequiously respectful. "I'll have to go down and have a talk with Mr. Presby," he said, and would have ventured a further remark, but was cut short by the mine-owner. "Yes, you'd better go and see him," Dick said concisely. "And when you go, take all of your dunnage you can carry, then come back and get the rest. I shall not want you on the claim an hour longer than necessary for you to get your stuff away. You're too good a man to have around here."