he said.

Then he drew out a pipe and began to cut flakes of tobacco from a
black plug.

"See here, Minky," he went on, after a moment's pause. "You need to do
some thinkin'. How much dust have you got in the store?"

"'Bout twenty thousand dollars."

"Whew!" Bill whistled softly as he packed the tobacco in his pipe. "An
elegant parcel for strangers to handle."

The storekeeper's face became further troubled.

"It sure is--if they handle it."

"Jest so."

Bill's pipe was alight now, and he puffed at it vigorously, speaking
between the puffs.

"Y'see, this feller James plays a big game. Cattle duffin' and
ord'n'ry stage-robbin' ain't good enough, nor big enough, to run his
gang on. He needs gold stages, and we ain't sendin' gold stages out.
Wal, wot's the conclusion? I ast you?"

"He'll hev to light out, or--"

"Jest so. Or he'll get around here to--look into things. Those
strangers last night were mebbe 'lookin' into things.' You'll need to
stow that dust where the rats can't gnaw it. Later we'll think things
out. Meanwhile there's one thing sure, we don't need strangers on
Suffering Creek. There's enough o' the boys around to work the gold,
an' when they get it they mostly know what to do with it. Guess I'll
get on up to Zip's shack."

The two men walked out into the store. Minky in a pessimistic mood
passed in behind his counter. This question of gold had bothered him
for some weeks. Since the first stage-robbing, and James' name had
become a "terror" in the district, he had opened a sort of banking
business for the prospectors. Commercially it appealed to him
enormously. The profits under his primitive methods of dealing with
the matter were dazzlingly large, and, in consequence, the business
became a dominant portion of his trade. Nor was it until the quantity
of gold he bought began to grow, and mount into thousands of dollars'
worth, that the difficulties of his traffic began to force themselves
upon him. Then it was that he realized that if it was insecure to
dispatch a gold stage laden with the property of the prospectors, how
was he to be able to hold his stock at the store with any greater
degree of security.

The more he thought of the matter the greater the difficulties
appeared. Of course he saw possibilities, but none of them offered the
security he needed. Then worry set in. History might easily repeat
itself on Suffering Creek. James' gang was reported to be a large one.
Well, what if