does the needle veer to the magnet; and for a long time they sat
there, until the fires of their cigars glowed like stars. The moon
came up, and the cross was outlined, dimly, above them, and against
the background of black, cast upon the somber, starlit blue of the
night.

From far below, as if steel had been struck upon stone, came a faint,
ringing sound. Living in that strange world of acuteness to which men
of the high hills are habituated, they listened, alert. Accustomed, as
are all those dwellers of the lonesome spots, to heeding anything out
of the ordinary, they strained their ears for a repetition. Clattering
up the roadway came the sound of a hard-ridden horse's hoofs, then his
labored breathing, and a soft voice steadying him to further effort.
Into the shadows was injected something moving, some unfamiliar,
living shape. It turned up the hill over the trail, and plunged
wearily toward them. They jumped to their feet and stepped down off
the porch, advancing to meet the belated visitor. The horse, with
lathering neck and distended nostrils, paused before them. The moon
cleared the top of the eastern ridges with a slow bound, lowering the
shadows until the sweat on the horse's neck glistened like a network
of diamond dust strewn on a velvet cloak. It also lighted to a pallid
gleam the still face of the night rider. It was Lily Meredith.

"I've come again," she said. "They're trying to make trouble for you,
down there in the camp. Bells Park came out and told me about it. The
miners' union stirred up by that man from Denver. Bells said the only
chance you had was to come down there at once. They've split on your
account--on account of the Croix d'Or. I've ridden two miles to warn
you, and to get you there before the meeting breaks up. Bells will try
and hold them until you can come and demand a hearing. If you don't
make it they will scab the mine. You must hurry. It's your only
chance. I know them, the best friends in peace, and devils when turned
the other way."

She stopped abruptly and looked off at the moon, and then around over
the dark and silent camp. Only one light was visible, that in the
cook's end of the mess-house, where that fat worthy lay upon his back
and read a yellow-backed, sentimental novel. Faint and rumbling came
the subdued roar of the mill at the Rattler, beating out the gold for
Bully Presby; and through some vague prescience Dick was aware of its
noise for the first time in weeks,