When they got back to town, they gathered again in the Little Nugget saloon, drinking, swearing, shouting. The morale of the camp was broken. It was a debauch. They cried out against Billy, and they feared him for the moment. They made a stable-boy hide in the brush with a bottle of whisky, to watch the works, to spy on they knew not what. Lafond drank with them. He had never done so before. As they became more noisy, he fell into a sullen fit, and went to sit over behind the stove where he crooned away to himself an old _chanson_. He stopped drinking, but the effects remained. It seemed to his befogged mind that the wave had broken and that he was falling through the air. Shortly he would be cast up against the beach. "A fool for luck!" he muttered to himself, trying to rehabilitate his denuded confidence. He took out the Company's letter to him, saying that the deeds were at Rapid awaiting his action, and read it. Then he put a stick of wood on the fire. He shivered and rubbed his eyes. Finally he went over to the hotel, where he washed his head again and again in cold water. After a time, he returned to the Little Nugget, feeling somewhat better. It was now daylight, although the sun was not up. The stable-boy came in from the upper gulch to say that Billy Knapp was hitching his horses to the buckboard. The news sobered them somewhat. Ten minutes later, the stable-boy again returned with the news that Knapp had loaded his buckboard, and was on the point of driving through town. A dozen men at once ran out into the street and concealed themselves behind the corners of buildings. XXXII IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING Billy sat in a chair and boiled. He did not calm down until after daylight, and then he found that his depression had vanished. He was full of vigor. He went out and looked over the property very carefully. The entire lay-out, he found, had weighed on his spirits, and this last ungrateful episode had made him sick of the whole miserable business. He ought never to be tied down. He could see his mistake clearly enough now. If he was going to stick to gold hunting, it ought to be as a prospector, not as a miner. A prospector enjoyed the delight of new country, of wilderness life, of the chase, and then, when civilization came too near, he could sell his claims to the miner and move on to a virgin country. A miner, on the other hand, had to settle down in one place and attend to all manner of vexatious details. Billy felt a great impatience to shake himself free. With the thought came a wave of anger against the men of the town. After all, what had he to gain by staying? This outfit was a fizzle; nothing could be done with it in the future. He might save something of the wreck by grubbing about in the débris, but grubbing was exactly what he wanted to get away from.