e claims; and for a full week they
labored, running side-lines, erecting monuments and taking angles on
every landmark for miles. The final blue-prints, duly certified and
witnessed, he took to the Recorder himself and then, still obsessed by
his premonition of evil, he came back to serve notice on McBain.

For every man there is always some person instinctively associated with
trouble; some person that he hates beyond all bounds and reason, and
intuitively fears and distrusts. In the jumping of the Gunsight there
had been others just as active, but Rimrock had forgiven them all but
McBain. Even the piratical L. W., for all his treachery, was still
within the pale of his friendship. But this tall, lanky Scotchman,
always lurking within the law as a spider hides for safety in its hole,
invoked nothing but his anger and contempt.

Rimrock dropped off the train that had brought him from the County
seat, and went straight up the street to the hotel. McBain was in his
office, stalking nervously up and down as he dictated to Mary Fortune,
when the door opened suddenly and Rimrock Jones stepped in and stood
gazing at him insolently.

"Good morning," he said with affected nicety of speech. "I hope that I
don't intrude. Yes, it is lovely weather, but I came here on a matter
of business. We've had our difficulties, Mr. Apex McBain, but all that
is in the past. What I came to say is: I've got my eye on you and I
don't want you out at my mine. Those claims are my property and, I
give you fair notice, if you trespass on my ground you'll get shot.
That's all for the present; but, because you've cleaned me once, don't
think you can do it again."

He bowed with mock politeness, taking off his hat with a flourish, and
as he backed out Mary Fortune turned pale. There was something in that
bow and the affected accents that referred indirectly to her. She knew
it intuitively and the hot blood rushed back and mantled her cheeks
with red. Then she straightened up proudly and when McBain began to
dictate her machine went on clacking defiantly.

There followed long days in which Rimrock idled about town or rode back
and forth to his mine, and then the gossips began to talk. A change,
over night, had taken place in Rimrock the day after his return from
New York. On the first great day he had been his old self--boasting,
drinking, giving away his money and calling the whole town in on his
joy. The next day he had been sober