Ba'teese use this, nex' time." He balanced the cant hook,
examining it carefully as though for flaws which might cause it to
break in contact with a human target. Barry went on:

"I was talking about the flume. You heard what that fellow said--that
they had the woods, the lake and the flume to use as they pleased?
How--"

"Mebbe they think they jus' take it."

"Which they can't. I'm going back to the camp and get more men."

"No." Ba'tiste grinned. "We got enough--you an' Ba'teese. I catch
'em with this. You take that club. If they get 'round me, you,
what-you-say, pickle 'em off."

But the expected attack did not come. An hour they waited, and a hour
after that. Still no crowd of burly men came surging toward them from
the Blackburn camp, still no attempt was made to wrest from their
possession the waterway which they had taken over as their rightful
property.

Houston studied the flume.

"We'll have to get some men up here and rip out this connection," came
at last. "They've broken off our end entirely."

"Ah, _oui_! But we will stay here. By'm'by, Medaine come. We will
send her for men."

"Medaine? That was she I heard talking?"

"_Oui_. She had come to ask me if she should bring me food. She was
riding. Ba'teese sen' her away. But she say she come back to see if
Ba'teese is all right."

Houston shook his head.

"That's good. But I'm afraid that you won't find her doing anything to
help me out."

"She will help Ba'teese," came simply from the big man, as the
iron-bound cant hook was examined for the fiftieth time. "Why they no
come, huh?"

"Search me. Do you suppose they've given it up? It's a bluff on their
part, you know, Ba'tiste. They haven't any legal right to this land or
flume or anything else; they just figured that my mill was burned and
that I wouldn't be in a position to fight them. So they decided to
take over the flume and try to force us into letting them have it."

"Here comes somebody!" Ba'tiste's grip tightened about the cant hook
and he rose, squaring himself. Houston seized the club and stood
waiting a few feet in the rear, in readiness for any one who might
evade the bulwark of blows which Ba'tiste evidently intended to set up.
Far in the woods showed the shadowy forms of three men, approaching
steadily and apparently without any desire for battle. Ba'tiste turned
sharply. "Your eye, keep heem open. Eet may be a blind."

But Houston searched the