elling Alicia?" he mused. "I'm evidently two or
three chapters behind. But no matter; this is the now; the very
immediate now. Will your assassin keep on feeling for you?"

Ford shook his head. "Not any more just at present, I guess. He has
waited too long. That fusillade of his will have turned the entire camp
out by this time, and the Macs don't want any inconvenient witnesses."

"Witnesses?" echoed Adair. "Then you don't know--Say, Stuart; there
isn't a white man in this camp besides us three--unless you count the
MacMorroghs and their commissary garrison as white men. News of the
great gold strike got here about three o'clock, and every laborer within
hearing of it shouldered pick and shovel and lined out up the new track
for Copah."

"What!" shouted Ford. "And these dash-_dashed_ MacMorroghs didn't try
to hold them?"

"I don't know about that. I had Mr. Brissac, here, over in the '01'--I
came across the mountain in North's car, you know--dosing him with
things out of Doctor Van Bruce's traveling case, and trying to get him
in shape to show me the way to Copah. After the stampede, which took all
the four-legged horses as well as the two-legged asses, I persuaded your
man Gallagher to hitch his engine to our car to drag us up to Frisbie's
camp at the front. I thought Frisbie would probably be in communication
with you. Gallagher's intentions were good, but about three miles up
Horse Creek he ditched the car so thoroughly that we couldn't inhabit
it; so we got out and walked back."

"All of which brings on more talk," said Ford gravely. "From what you
say, I gather that the MacMorroghs are still here. Did any one see you
come back?"

"I don't know. It was after dark when we straggled in, and we didn't
ring any bells or blow any whistles."

Ford stood up.

"Does either one of you happen to have anything bigger than a
pocket-knife in the way of a weapon?" he asked.

"Why? what are you going to do?" Adair demanded.

"I am going to separate you two from my highly dangerous presence," said
Ford definitely. "The MacMorroghs' outfit of a dozen or fifteen
cutthroat scoundrels, captained, for the moment, by Eckstein, North's
right-hand man, are doubtless just across the way in the back room of
the commissary. You say the camp is otherwise deserted: the MacMorroghs
don't know that you are here; and they do know that I am, dead or alive.
Moreover, Mattacheco has doubtless told them by this time that I saw and
recogn