en?"

McCoppet rose, went to the window, and returned again.

"Larry, you're all right," he said. "Where's Barger now?"

Trimmer winked. "That's his business, and mine."

"All right--that's all right," agreed the gambler. "Wouldn't he take
it as a favor if you passed him some money and the word about Van
Buren's hike to Starlight?"

Trimmer got out a new cigar, lit up, and began to smoke as before.

"I was goin' to pass him some of mine," he confessed. "Yours will suit
me just as good."

"Five hundred ought to help him some," said the gambler. "Come out to
the bar."

At dark the lumberman left the camp on foot, heading for the mountains.
Bostwick departed in the borrowed car at eight. The whole town was
ablaze with light, and tumultuous with sound. Glare and disturbance
together, however, only faintly symbolized the excitement and fever in
the camp. A thousand men were making final preparations for the rush
so soon to come--the mad stampede upon the reservation ground, barely
more than a day removed.

Miners with outfits, gamblers with their paraphernalia, saloon men with
case on case of liquors, assayers, lawyers, teamsters, cooks--even a
half dozen women--comprised the heterogeneous army making ready for the
charge. The streets were filled with horses, men, and mules. The
saloons were jammed to suffocation. Musical discord filled the air.
Only the land, the silent old hills, the ancient, burned-out furnace of
gold, was absolutely calm. Overhead a few clouds blurred the sky.
Beyond them the eternal march of the stars proceeded in the majesty of
space, with billions of years in which to fulfil the cosmic cycle of
existence.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE HARDSHIPS OF THE TRAIL

In the night, far out to the northward, a storm descended like a
cataclysm. Torrential rains were poured upon the hills from a
cloudburst exceptionally savage. Only the scattered outposts, as it
were, of the storm were blown as far as Goldite. A sprinkle of rain
that dried at once was the most those mountains received.

Van made an early start from the "Laughing Water" claim, to deliver
Beth's letter in Starlight. Her note to himself he read once more as
his pony jogged down the descent.

"Dear Mr. Van: I wonder if I dare to ask a favor--from one who has done
so much already? My brother, in Starlight, is ill. He has hurt
himself, I do not know how badly. A letter I sent has never been
received, and I am worrie