nding in with us; but I had to pull out, and
Alton and another man made most of five thousand dollars out of the
claim I left."

"The Bluebird?" said Hallam reflectively. "I remember that rush.
Alton did himself well. Wasn't there a man called Nailer mixed up in
the affair?"

"There was," said Damer, who seemed to shiver a little. "He was my
partner. We'd have had the claim, and Alton wouldn't have worried
anybody again, if Nailer had kept his nerve that night. Something went
wrong with the spring of his Winchester.--and Alton didn't give him
another chance."

The silence that followed was, somewhat impressive. Hallam was trying
to remember what he had read about the affray in question in a Tacoma
paper, while Damer once more saw in fancy a man spring half-dressed
through the wisp of smoke that drifted about a little tent. He
remembered with an unpleasant distinctness the crash of the rifle shot
that rang amidst the shadowy pines, and the grim face of the man who
whirled an axe that glinted in the moonlight about his head. He saw
the flash of its descent--and then brushing the memories from him
stretched out a hand that shook a little towards the whisky on the
table.

"Well," he said, "I owe Alton a good deal, and that's why I went up to
Somasco when you told me, but he has been too much for me again, and
now I feel it in me that if I'm wise I'll let that man alone."

He drank a little whisky, and sat still, staring vacantly before him
with a vague apprehension in his eyes, while the strained tenseness of
his expression and attitude was not without its effect on Hallam, and
it was unfortunate he did not yield to the impulse which prompted him
to let Damer go. He, however, shook off the fancy with a little,
impatient laugh.

"It's not going to suit me to have you slipping out of the country," he
said. "I want you right here, though it would be quite easy to find a
man with twice the grit you have in you. You let Alton whip you off
your claim in Washington, and--for I've a notion of what has
happened--'most pound the head off you yesterday. Now you want to
light out, leaving him to laugh at you?"

Damer flushed a little, and a look of vindictive malice crept into his
eyes as he rose.

"That's about enough!" he said. "You're quite a different man from
Alton. I'm going on."

"Sit down!" said Hallam sharply. "I'm quite as dangerous to you. Take
some more whisky, and listen to me, though I didn't