Breck made as if to refuse, but all about him were menacing faces.
Reluctantly, he fumbled in his coat pocket. In the act of drawing forth
a pepper-can, it rattled against what was evidently a hard object.

"Fetch it all out!" Shunk Wilson thundered.

And out came the big nugget, fist-size, yellow as no gold any onlooker
had ever seen. Shunk Wilson gasped. Half a dozen, catching one glimpse,
made a break for the door. They reached it at the same moment, and, with
cursing and scuffling, jammed and pivoted through. The judge emptied
the contents of the pepper-can on the table, and the sight of the rough
lump-gold sent half a dozen more toward the door.

"Where are you goin'?" Eli Harding asked, as Shunk started to follow.

"For my dogs, of course."

"Ain't you goin' to hang him?"

"It'd take too much time right now. He'll keep till we get back, so I
reckon this court is adjourned. This ain't no place for lingerin'."

Harding hesitated. He glanced savagely at Smoke, saw Pierre beckoning
to Louis from the doorway, took one last look at the lump-gold on the
table, and decided.

"No use you tryin' to get away," he flung back over his shoulder.
"Besides, I'm goin' to borrow your dogs."

"What is it?--another one of them blamed stampedes?" the old blind
trapper asked in a queer and petulant falsetto, as the cries of men and
dogs and the grind of the sleds swept the silence of the room.

"It sure is," Lucy answered. "An' I never seen gold like it. Feel that,
old man."

She put the big nugget in his hand. He was but slightly interested.

"It was a good fur-country," he complained, "before them danged miners
come in an' scared back the game."

The door opened, and Breck entered. "Well," he said, "we four are all
that are left in camp. It's forty miles to the Stewart by the cut-off
I broke, and the fastest of them can't make the round trip in less than
five or six days. But it's time you pulled out, Smoke, just the same."

Breck drew his hunting-knife across the other's bonds, and glanced
at the woman. "I hope you don't object?" he said, with significant
politeness.

"If there's goin' to be any shootin'," the blind man broke out, "I wish
somebody'd take me to another cabin first."

"Go on, an' don't mind me," Lucy answered. "If I ain't good enough to
hang a man, I ain't good enough to hold him."

Smoke stood up, rubbing his wrists where the thongs had impeded the
circulation.

"I've got a pack all ready for yo