"Joe," he said, "how many friends have you got that we can put on the pay-roll for a few days at twenty-five dollars a day? To stake claims down in the Gulch?" "_Jesus Maria!_" gasped Joe. "Twenty-five dollars a day? For each man? There would be one meelion men, Señor Caballero...." "Take him in tow, Graham! Get a list of names from him, men to be reached in an hour's ride. As many as you can get, twenty or thirty or forty. And get them here ... quick." Al Blake arrived from the Red Creek Mine. Stringing along after him came a dozen men of his choosing; big, uncouth, unshaved, rough-looking customers to the last man of them and yet ... as Standing and Blake agreed ... _all good men!_ Good to carry out orders; to put up a fight against odds; to hang on and fight to the last ditch. Graham saw to it that every man Jack of them was fed and had his cigar from the Chief's private stock. The men grouped outside and looked at one another, but for the greater part wasted little breath in speculations and questionings, each realizing that his fellows knew as little as himself. It was a busy morning for Bruce Standing. Yet three times he found the time ... rather he made it ... to go out to the "hospital" to stand over old Thor and speak softly to him. Thor lay upon a white-enamelled bed; his bed was softened for him by many downy pillows; at the bedside sat Charley Peters, his face as grave, his eye as watchful, as could have been had it been Timber-Wolf himself who lay there. And when Standing came in Thor heard his step and tried to move; tried to lift his poor battered head. But at the master's low voice, "Down, Thor! Down, sir ... good old dog!" Thor lay back and his tired sigh was like the sigh of a man. Standing's big hand rested gently upon the old fellow ... then Standing went out, walking softly and Thor lay still a very long while, waiting for him to come again.... Al Blake left within fifteen minutes of his arrival, a little army of armed men at his back. With him, on the fastest horse in Standing's stables, rode a man whose sole responsibility was to race back with word of conditions. Fully Standing counted on hearing that already at least two claims had been staked. But he was not ready to see Lynette again so soon; he was not ready yet to see Babe Deveril. Never for a single instant since seeing that bit of paper hung to a tree with a girl's mockery upon it, had he doubted that this girl, whom he had thought that he loved, had cast in with the Baby Devil, the two racing side by side to steal Mexicali Joe's gold. He had said to Al Blake: "Put them off ... but don't hurt either of them. Leave them to me." Attorney Ben Brewster, a man much shaken, arrived in record time. He could scarcely speak a word until Graham poured out for him a generous glass of whiskey. Then he glared at Standing as though he would highly enjoy killing him.