“If they were sober, I could hold them until hell froze, but they have just been paid off, and by night they will all be drunk. Then there will be trouble. It has been brewin’ for a week. Some agitator chap has been talking it up to them about the way the Company was stealing from them. I don’t jest know what we had better do,” he concluded, while he fingered his gun nervously, and looked to Loring for guidance. “Rigas is dead, you said?” asked Stephen. “Well, not exactly. He might as well be, though. A forty-five calibre hole through your head ain’t healthy. If he ain’t dead now, he won’t live more than a few hours. And when he does die—!” Knowlton broke off gloomily. “What are you going to do about it, Mr. Loring?” “We can only wait,” answered Loring. “We must not let them see that we are anxious.” “Ain’t you going to do _nothing_?” Knowlton looked at Loring in perfect amazement. Stephen smiled, and shook his head. “No, I am going to supper. I would advise you to eat at the mess to-night, instead of at your shack. I am afraid that at present you are not exactly popular.” He walked off towards the eating-house, while Knowlton stood looking after him blankly. “He don’t realize that in about three hours after those men get to drinking, the Kay mine won’t exist. If we had a real man in charge here, we might do something about it. He thinks, I suppose, that because the men like him there won’t be trouble. Hell! and I used to think he had sense!” Knowlton almost snorted in his rage. At supper every man was keyed to a high pitch of excitement. There were only about twenty white men in camp, and though they were well armed, the Mexicans outnumbered them more than fifteen to one. Stephen alone refrained from joining in the flurry of question and conjecture which whirled about the table. Although he seemed unmoved, a close observer would have noticed that he gripped his knife and fork almost as if they had been weapons. Wah slid his plate of soup before him, at the same time patting him on the shoulder with affectionate interest. “Me bludder like one owl,” he said. “Hey, Wah, this soup is rotten!” called a young fellow from the end of the table. “Oh, lubbly, lubbly soup!” chanted Wah. “Lubbly, me bludder, lubbly.” “I’m not your bludder, Wah,” answered the man politely. “I would rather have an ape for a brother than you.” “You me bludder, allee samee, allee samee.” Saying which, Wah disappeared into the kitchen, only to stick his head a moment later through the connecting window, and call: “Oh, you pig-faced Swede, Oh, you pig-faced Swede! La, la, boom, boom!” But even Wah was unable to break the tension that surrounded the supper. As the men were lighting their pipes at the close of the meal, from the gulch behind the camp where were the saloons, came the sound of a fusillade of shots and a burst of shrill yelling. “The game is on,” thought Loring.