," said their unwilling guide, pointing
at a group of red-painted mining structures nestled in a flat lap in
the ragged mountains.

They surmised that this must be the Rattler camp, and inspected its
display of tall smokestacks, high hoists, skeleton tramways, and bleak
dumps. Before they could make any reply, the gate behind them slammed
shut with a vicious bang that attracted their attention. They turned
to see the watchman hurrying back up the road. Fixed to the barricade
was a sign, crudely lettered, but insistently distinct:

No one allowed on these premises, by order of the owners. For any
business to be transacted with the Croix d'Or, apply to Thomas W.
Presby.

"Curt enough, at least, isn't he?" commented Townsend, half-smiling.

"Curt!" growled his companion, frowning, with his recent anger but
half-dissipated. "Curt as a bulldog takin' a bite out of your leg.
Don't waste no time at all on words. Just says: 'It's you I'm lookin'
after.' Where do you reckon we'll find this here Thomas Presby
person?"

"I suppose he must have an office up there somewhere," answered
Townsend, waving his arm in the direction of the scattered buildings
spread in that profligacy of space which comes where space is free.

"These mules is tired. It's a shame we couldn't have left them up
there," Mathews answered, looking at them and fondling the ears of the
nearest one. "You go on up and get an order letting us into your mine,
and I'll wait here. No use in makin' these poor devils do any more'n
they have to."

Townsend assented, and followed a path which zigzaged around bowlders
and stumps up to the red cluster on the hillside above him. He was
impatient and annoyed at the useless delays imposed upon them in this
new venture, and wondered why his father's partner had not informed
him of the fact that he would find the mine guarded by the owner of
the adjoining property.

A camp "washwoman," with clothespins in her mouth, and a soggy gray
shirt in her hands, paused to stare at him from beneath a row of other
gray and blue shirts and coarse underwear, dripping from the lines
above her head.

Two little boys, fantastically garbed in faded blue denim which had
evidently been refashioned from cast-off wearing apparel of their
sires, followed after him, hand in hand, as if the advent of a
stranger on the Rattler grounds was an event of interest, and he found
himself facing a squat, red, white-bordered, one-storied building,
over