A mongrel sort of a man, one Joe Nuñez, known by everybody as Mexicali Joe, came in and demanded corn whiskey and paid for it on the spot. That in itself was interesting; Joe seldom had money. For twenty years he had been content to have his wife support him while he combed the ridges, always prospecting, always begging grub-stakes, always spending the winters telling what he would do, come spring. To-night, looking tired and dirty, he was triumphant. He spent his silver dollars with a flourish, and an onlooker, laughing, announced that Joe must have stolen his wife's money. Joe resented the accusation with dignity; he knew what he knew; he wagged his head and stared insolently and tossed off his drink in solemn silence. Thereafter he dropped innuendoes while he had his second drink. The man, Barny McCuin, who had badgered him in the first place, carelessly called him a liar. Joe, who had accepted the familiar epithet a thousand times in his life, for once bridled up and spat back. From so small a matter grew the fight. Onlookers laughed and were amused, taking no serious stock in the fracas because it appeared inevitable that in half a dozen minutes big Barny McCuin would have Mexicali Joe whimpering and apologetic. But it chanced that as Barny flung the smaller man about, the Mexican's coat pocket was torn and from it spilled a handful of raw gold. Men pounced upon the scattered bits of quartz, Barny among them; they caught it up and stared from one another to Joe, who became suddenly quiet and tense and alert. Then a great shout rumbled up: "_Gold!_" And that was the one word which set all Big Pine ablaze. Here, on the fringe of a gold-mining country, which the latter years had all but worn out, there had been made that fresh discovery which every man of them always kept somewhere in the bottom of his mind as a possibility for himself. Gallup, called "Young Gallup," simply because he was the son of "Old Gallup," who had gone to his last rest twenty-five years ago, was a man eminently capable of dealing swiftly with unexpected situations; he did not know the meaning of tact, but he did understand force. This was his house and here his word was law; he broke into the room at the first outcry, took in everything with one flick of his black eyes, and issued his orders. "Hand that stuff over," he commanded the men who still held bits of the Mexican's specimens. "It belongs to Joe, and no man's going to be robbed here under my nose, Mex or White."