"I should say they did!" Bert interjected. "They dragged the crowd out
of the shaft--and they were a tough-looking proposition, I can tell
you!--and stood them up in a row. They shaved half of Davidson's head
and half his beard, on opposite sides. They left tufts of hair all over
Arthur. They made a six-pointed star on the top of Slayton's crown.
Then they put the men's clothes on wrong side before, and tied them
facing the rear on three scrubby little burros. Then the whole outfit
was started toward Deadwood. The boys took them as far as Blue Lead,
where they delivered them over to the gang there, with instructions to
pass them along. They probably got to Deadwood. I don't know what's
become of them since."
"I think it was cruel!" put in Miss Fay decidedly.
"Perhaps. But it was better than hanging them."
"What became of Mrs. Arthur?" asked the invalid.
"I shipped her to Deadwood with a little money. Poor creature! It would
be a good thing for her if her husband never did show up. She'd get
along better without him."
The claims located and the sharpers got rid of, Fay proceeded at once
to put the assessment work under way. In this, his long Western
experience, and his intimate acquaintance with the men, stood him in
such good stead that he was enabled to contract the work at a cheaper
rate than Bishop's estimate.
"I wrote to Bishop," he said, "and told him all about it. In his
answer, which I'll show you, he took all the blame to himself, just as
I anticipated he would, and he's so tickled to death over the showing
made by the assays that he's coming out here himself to see about
development. So I'm afraid you're going to lose your job."
"I'm not sorry to go home. But I'm sorry to leave the Hills." He looked
wistfully through the twilight toward Mary's slender figure, outlined
against the window. The three men caught the glance, and began at once
to talk in low tones to each other. In a moment they went out. Somehow,
on returning from the land of visions, Ben found that the world had
moved, and that one of the results of the movement was that many things
were taken for granted by the little community of four who surrounded
him. It was as though the tangle had unravelled quietly while he slept.
She leaned toward him shyly, and whispered something to his ear. He
smiled contentedly.
They talked then long and comfortably in the dusk--about how the
Leslies had written the letter, how much trouble she had taken to
conceal her real identity, and all the rest.
"I sent Bill Lawton up to warn your camp the first day I met you," said
she.