The Spoilers _By_ REX E. BEACH [Illustration: colophon] With Four Illustrations By CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK. Copyright, 1905, by REX E. BEACH. _All rights reserved._ Published April, 1906. THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE ENCOUNTER 1 II. THE STOWAWAY 13 III. IN WHICH GLENISTER ERRS 22 IV. THE KILLING 33 V. WHEREIN A MAN APPEARS 48 VI. AND A MINE IS JUMPED 59 VII. THE “BRONCO KID’S” EAVESDROPPING 68 VIII. DEXTRY MAKES A CALL 80 IX. SLUICE ROBBERS 94 X. THE WIT OF AN ADVENTURESS 107 XI. WHEREIN A WRIT AND A RIOT FAIL 120 XII. COUNTERPLOTS 132 XIII. IN WHICH A MAN IS POSSESSED OF A DEVIL 149 XIV. A MIDNIGHT MESSENGER 168 XV. VIGILANTES 183 XVI. IN WHICH THE TRUTH BEGINS TO BARE ITSELF 201 XVII. THE DRIP OF WATER IN THE DARK 218 XVIII. WHEREIN A TRAP IS BAITED 236 XIX. DYNAMITE 249 XX. IN WHICH THREE GO TO THE SIGN OF THE SLED AND BUT TWO RETURN 268 XXI. THE HAMMER-LOCK 285 XXII. THE PROMISE OF DREAMS 300 THE SPOILERS CHAPTER I THE ENCOUNTER Glenister gazed out over the harbor, agleam with the lights of anchored ships, then up at the crenelated mountains, black against the sky. He drank the cool air burdened with its taints of the sea, while the blood of his boyhood leaped within him. “Oh, it’s fine--fine,” he murmured, “and this is my country--my country, after all, Dex. It’s in my veins, this hunger for the North. I grow. I expand.” “Careful you don’t bust,” warned Dextry. “I’ve seen men get plumb drunk on mountain air. Don’t expand too strong in one spot.” He went back abruptly to his pipe, its villanous fumes promptly averting any danger of the air’s too tonic quality.