He was like a death's-head, with his expressionless eyes, his hairless face and head and tightly stretched, sallow skin. When he spoke, his lips scarcely moved. Jack Allen knew the man had no more fear in him than a stone. There would be no taking such a man alive. "Yeh, I've got a hard bunch workin' for me, but I figgered that until this quartz gang is busted up I might as well have fighters as well as workers," he said softly in reply to a question from Allen. The Wyoming sheriff nodded; this sounded like sense to him. "I hear yuh struck it rich?" he asked, after a pause, in which each man frankly studied the other. "One of the old-timers went broke sinkin' my shaft," Baldy explained. "His vein petered out, an' the fool killed himself. A greaser who worked for him tipped me off that by putting in a side cut I could strike a rich vein. I bought the place for taxes an' did what the greaser tol' me. An' I've struck it rich--plenty rich! I'm sorta hopin' that what that old fool Pop Howes believes about the El Dorado mother lode startin' again on this side of the gulch is true, 'cause, if it does, I've got it an' not him." "How many men yuh got workin' for yuh?" "Eight--an' they're all gun slingers." Jack Allen was silent for a moment. Was this a threat, or a mere statement of fact? His eyes caught and held Baldy's. "How did that ol'-timer kill himself?" "Threw himself down the shaft," said the mine owner quickly. Allen thought to himself. "He's sure enough a cool customer, an' he'd do anything--cut a man's throat without a wink. Mebbe he threw that old-timer down the shaft, himself. But if the Blue Sky is as rich as he says it is, there ain't no use tryin' to hitch him up with them quartz robbers. A man worth a million doesn't go about stealin' thousands." It was late noon when Jack Allen turned up the path that led to the American Beauty Mine. Jim Allen, who was sitting on a bench on the shady side of the house, saw him coming and arose to his feet with the idea of vanishing, but on second thought he decided to remain and speak to his brother. Pop Howes was over visiting Hard-rock Hogan, and Mrs. Howes was asleep upstairs, so there would be no one to report that the sheriff had talked to the outlaw. But Jim was mistaken in this, for Mrs. Howes peered through the window and saw the meeting between the two brothers. "Hello, Jack," Jim said hesitatingly. "Hello, yuh darned ol' hoss thief," Jack responded with a grin. "Yuh ain't changed none sense I see yuh last up in Wyoming." "You neither--yuh don't look a day over twenty."