Suddenly he stepped aside and a tall, hawk-faced man who had been holding his place at Gallup's side, just behind Taggart's massive bulk, stepped forward. Men craned their necks and crowded closer; nearly all of them knew Cliff Shipton. He was a Gallup man and always had been a Gallup man; for the last two years he had been in charge of a profitless "gold-mine" which Gallup pretended to operate at the head of the Lost Woman's Gulch; a property which, it was generally conceded in and about Big Pine, was merely the proverbial hole in the ground intended for sale to a fool. "Last week, gents," said Shipton in his easy style, "we hit it rich out at the Gallup Bonanza. Pocket or ledge, we're not saying which right now. But we got the stuff. We been keeping it quiet until we got good and ready to spring something. I had the choice specimens in a box in my shack. That Mexican's been prowling around; I couldn't be sure until I'd glimpsed the specimens, but I just looked 'em over. That's the story; Mexicali, being half drunk and stupid generally, made his haul out of my specimen box." As the first slow murmur, gathering volume, began, Jim Taggart threw up his hand and shouted: "Now, men, go slow! I've seen a pack of gents before now get all het-up because they was sore and disappointed. And I can read the eye-signs! But pull off and think things over before you make a lot of howling fools out of yourselves. If you want me any time.... Well, I'll be right on hand!" He stepped back swiftly, in through the open door, and it closed after him. For a little while the men remained uncertain. Jim Taggart represented the law; further, he was no man at any time to trifle with. He had offered them an explanation and the worst of it was that it might be the truth. Discussions began on every hand; those who believed were in the minority and lost voice as the other voices, becoming heated, grew louder. Babe Deveril was turning away when a man caught at his sleeve. "You know those men, Taggart and Gallup and the rest. What do you make of it? What had we ought to do?" Deveril shook the man off. "Go slow until you know what you're doing," he admonished curtly. "Then go like hell." He skirted the crowd and went up to his cabin to be alone and do a bit of thinking on his own part. CHAPTER III There was a crowd of men, tight-jammed, about the little square stone jail as Deveril made his way toward his cabin. Every man of them was striving for a glance through the barred slit of a window behind which Mexicali Joe glared out at them. In the throng Deveril marked a man who wore his deputy-sheriff's badge thrust prominently into notice and who carried a rifle across the hollow of his arm. Deveril shrugged and went on. "In jail or out, the Mex is going to keep a shut mouth," he meditated. "He'll never spill a word now, unless Taggart gets a chance to give him a rough-and-ready third degree. And Taggart will get no such chance to-night."