The big man said nothing, but took a step nearer to her horse, and looked up into her face with his penetrating eyes. He reached up and closed his hand over both of hers, and held them for an instant, and then whirled back into the cabin to get his hat. The horse pivoted and started away. "If I see Bells before you do," a voice floated up from the shadows below, where the moon had not yet penetrated, "I'll tell him you're coming. So long." As the partners dog-trotted down the trail, she was already a long way in advance. Now and then, as they panted up the steep path leading away behind the Rattler, whose lights glowed dimly, they heard faint sounds telling them that she was hastening back to Goldpan. The winding of the trail took them away from the immediate roar of the stamp mill behind, and they were still in the gloom, when they saw the horse and rider outlined for a moment high above them on the crest of the divide and they thought she stopped for a moment and looked back. Then the silhouette seemed to float down out of sight, and was gone. At the top, wordless, and sweating with effort, they filled their lungs, hitched their belts tighter, and plunged into the shadows leading toward the straggling rows of lights far below. They ran now, doggedly, hoping to arrive in the camp before the meeting came to an end. "All we want," Bill said jerkily, as his feet pounded on the last decline, "is a chance to argue it out with the men themselves before this Denver feller gets his work in. I'm entitled to talk to 'em. I've got my own card, and am as good a union man as any of 'em. The boys'll be reasonable if they stop to think." They hastened up the roadway of the street, which was, as at any hour of the night, filled with moving men and clamorous with sound. They knew that the miners' hall was at its farthest end over the Golden Age Saloon, and so lost no time in directing their steps toward it. A group in the roadway compelled them to turn out; and they were hurrying past, when a high, angry voice arrested them. "And that's what they did to me--me, old Bells Park, who is sixty-four!" Dick turned into the crowd, followed by his partner, and began forcing his way through. Bells was screaming and sobbing now in anger, and venting a tirade of oaths. "If I'd been younger they couldn't have done it so easily. If I'd 'a' had my gun, I'd 'a' killed some of 'em, I would!" As the partners gained the little opening around him, the light from a window disclosed the white-headed, little man. Two men were half-holding him up. His face was a mass of blood, which one of his supporters was endeavoring to wipe away with a handkerchief, and from all sides came indignant, sympathetic mutterings. "Who did that?" roared the heavy, infuriated voice of Bill as he turned to those around him. Bells, whose eyes were swollen shut, recognized the voice, and lurched forward.