As the noise outside became louder, Stephen said to the men: “I want all you fellows to get your guns and go over into the office to guard the safe. Go as quietly as you can so as not to stir things up. Keep quiet in there and don’t shoot unless you are compelled to. We have just issued some new stock, and if there is news of any fighting here the value will go all to pieces. We must just wait, and keep quiet. Remember a fight means almost ruin, and we have got to avoid it.” Knowlton looked quickly over to McKay, and nodded. Both were experienced men, and they knew that now was no time to think of stock values, but of actually saving the mine, and the lives of the white men there. They knew that serious trouble was intended, as since the shooting, every outlet of the camp had been guarded by Mexicans. They knew that the only chance, not for avoiding a fight, but for avoiding a massacre, lay in an immediate attack on the Mexicans, before they were completely out of hand. And Loring was thinking of stock values! Still, they remembered that he was inexperienced, and they set down to indecision what seemed like criminal folly. As for McKay, he had known Loring to fall once before, and he was not hopeful for the outcome. “Knowlton,” continued Loring, “you had better stay here with me. It won’t do for the miners to think that you are hidden.” “Well, I won’t be,” exclaimed Knowlton decisively. “There is only one thing in this world that I am afraid of, and that is a fool!” The men hurried to their tents to procure their firearms. From the window of the mess Stephen watched them, as one by one they returned and slipped into the darkened office. Then he stepped out on the porch, and seated himself beneath the full glare of the hanging electric light. Knowlton, with a dogged expression on his face, seated himself on the steps. Another man came and joined them. It was McKay. “Let me stay here with you, Steve,” he said gruffly. “Thank you!” replied Stephen. Then he relapsed into silence. Sitting with his watch beside him on the arm of the chair, and smoking furiously, his eye traveled to Knowlton, and dwelt on the brown oiled butt of the latter’s “automatic,” an odd-shaped lump against the white of his shirt. “That was the first time I ever killed a man by accident,” murmured Knowlton, half to himself. “The Doc said after supper that Rigas might possibly live another hour.” “An hour, did you say?” asked Loring. Then again he sat in silence, staring intently at his watch. “Quarter past eight. He has lived more than an hour since supper.” From the valley, seven miles away, came softly the whistle of the evening train. The noise in camp was continually increasing in volume. Groups of miners went by the mess shouting, singing, and whooping derisively. Every now and then the babel of voices was punctuated by shots fired in rapid succession as some one emptied his gun in the air. By the hospital a silent group was waiting, waiting for Rigas to die.