"Some fellers backin' up that Denver thug," he wailed. "I was tryin' to hold 'em till you come. He had the meetin' packed with a lot of bums I never saw before, and, when I told 'em what I thought of 'em and him, he ordered me thrown out. I tore my card to pieces and chucked 'em in his fat face, and then one of the fellers that came with him hit me. They threw me down the stairs, and might 'a' killed me if there hadn't been one or two of my friends there. They call 'emselves union miners! The dirty loafers!" And his voice screamed away again into a line of objurgations and anathemas until Bill quieted him. "Here, Dick," he said, "give us a hand. We'll take him over to Lily's rooms and have her get Doc Mills." His voice was unusually calm and contained. Dick had heard him use that tone but once before, when he made a proposition to a man in an Arizona camp that the road was wide, the day fine, and each well armed. He had helped bury the other man after that meeting, so now read the danger note. "I'll go get The Lily to come up and open the door," one of Bells' supporters said; "and won't you go for Doc?" He addressed the man on the other side of the engineer. "Sure!" replied the other. Within five minutes they were in Mrs. Meredith's rooms again; and it seemed to Dick, as he looked around its dainty fittings, that it was forever to be a place of tragedy; for the memory of that terribly burned victim of the fire was still there, and he seemed to see her lying, scorched and unconscious, on the white counterpane. "His nose is busted, I think," his partner said to The Lily, whose only comment was an abrupt exclamation: "What a shame! The cowards!" He turned to the woman with his set face, and, still speaking in that calm, deadly voice, said: "Do you happen to have your gun up here?" Her eyes opened wider, and Dick was about to interpose, when she answered understandingly: "Yes; but I'll not give it to you, Bill Mathews." "I'm sorry," he said, as quietly as if his request or her refusal had been mere desultory conversation. "I might need one in a pinch; but if you can't spare it, I reckon the boy and me can do what we have to do without one." He turned and walked from the room and Dick followed, hoping to argue him from that dangerous mood. "Say, Bill," he said, "isn't it about bad enough without any more trouble?" "What? You don't mean to say you're not with me?" exclaimed the miner, suddenly turning on him and stopping abruptly in the street. "Are you for lettin' 'em get away with it? Of course you ain't! You always stick. Come on." They saw that the lights in the miners' hall were out, and began a steady tour of the saloons in the vicinity. One of their own men was in one of them--Smuts, the blacksmith, cursing loudly and volubly as they entered.