his fingers pulling aimlessly at his
moustache.

"Ay ban yere by you fellers," he confessed sorrowfully, unable to
determine which person it was that wanted him.

"So I see," admitted the sheriff laconically. "Are you Nels Swanson?"

The fellow swallowed something in his throat that seemed to choke him.
This question sounded familiar; it brought back in a rush a
recollection of his late controversy with Mr. O'Brien. His face
flushed, his eyes hardening.

"Ay ban Nels Swanson!" he exploded, beating the air with clenched fist.
"Ay ban Lutheran! Ay ban shovel-man by Meester Burke. Ay get two
tollar saxty cint! Ay not give won tamn for you! Ay lick de fellar
vot ask me dot again!"

The sheriff stared at him, much as he might have examined a new and
peculiar specimen of bug.

"I don't recall having asked you anything about your family history,"
he said quietly, dropping one hand in apparent carelessness on the butt
of his "45." "Your name was all I wanted." He tapped the breast of
his coat suggestively, his gaze returning to Winston.

"Well, gents, we might as well bring this affair to a focus, although
no doubt you two understand the meaning of it pretty well already. I
've got warrants here for the arrest of Winston and Swanson. I hope
neither of you intend to kick up any row."

The white teeth of the young mining engineer set like a trap, his gray
eyes gleaming dangerously beneath frowning brows. Instinctively he
took a quick step forward.

"Warrants?" he exclaimed, breathlessly. "In God's name, for what?"

Hayes tightened his grip on the gun butt, drawing it half from the
sheath, his eyes narrowing.

"For the murder of Jack Burke," he said tersely. "Don't you move,
young man!"

There was a long moment of intense, strained silence, in which the five
men could hear nothing but their own quick breathing. Before Winston
everything grew indistinct, unreal, the faces fronting him a phantasy
of imagination. He felt the fierce throb of his own pulses, a sudden
dull pain shooting through his temples. _Murder_! The terrible word
struck like a blow, appearing to paralyze all his faculties. In front
of him, as if painted, he saw that fierce struggle in the dark, the
limp figure lying huddled among the rocks. _Murder_! Aye, and how
could he prove it otherwise? How could he hope to clear himself from
the foul charge? Even as he yet swayed unsteadily upon his feet, a
hand pressed across his eyes as