fety while the
last game was on, and it was here they came for it, tying me up the same
as you found me, and----"

"Who were they?" a man called out.

"The three who took the bets and another I've never seen."

With a shout of rage and a storm of words the men rushed from the
cottage, back to the Rest, spreading the story as they went, that there
had been thieves in the camp--thieves who had tried to fleece them, and,
having failed in that, had robbed them instead.

One or two remained with the constable.

"When was it done?" one asked Leary.

"How should I know?" he answered. "I reckon I was sleeping when I
wakened here all tied up, and there were the four of them parcelling out
the gold and talking among themselves quiet and easy. I let out a yell,
and one of them--the stranger--came over and jammed something into my
mouth--and there I was till you chaps came."

At the Rest the men were raging and storming, for they had now
discovered that Gleeson was gone; while round the proprietor of the
Rest, Marmot, Smart, and Cullen were gathered--the disappearance of the
gold entirely altered the character of the miners in their eyes. Palmer
Billy, his face working with passion, strode up and down.

"The sharks! And we didn't kill one of them when we had him," he was
yelling in a voice that sounded even above the babel.

Marmot, shrewdly scenting trouble if the miners were refused supplies at
the present juncture--and they would be refused if they asked now that
their money was gone--began to urge the men to start in chase of the
thieves. Fortunately his words caught Palmer Billy's ears, and at once
the stentorian voice shouted--

"Come on, boys, we'll run 'em down and hang 'em. They can't be far
away."

Most of the men saw red in the fury of the moment. With their winnings
gone, their festivity cut short, their credit exhausted, and their
self-control, never very strong, further weakened by the frolic of the
night before, there would have been a short shrift for any of the four
men had they been captured. But four mounted men, with their wits about
them, and with several hours' start, were more than a match for a mob of
men without organization, or even a knowledge as to the direction in
which the others had gone. A few moments' thought would have shown that
to them, only they had neither the time nor the inclination for thought.
They were off, anywhere and everywhere, as soon as they could get their
swags togeth