yep, but what on?" asked Gettysburg. "We're as broke as a
hatched-out egg."

"Haven't you worked on shinbones and heavenly hopes before?" inquired
the busy leader of the partnership. "And that reminds me, Algy, what
about you?" he added to the Chinese cook. "We can't afford a
tippe-bob-royal chef of your dimensions after this. I guess you'll
have to poison somebody else."

"What's mallah you, Van?" Algy demanded aggressively. "You makee me
velly sick. You get velly lich I cook your glub. You go bloke, I cook
alle same. Sominagot, I b'long go with you all time. You no got good
luck I never want the money, you savvy? You go hell--go anywhere--I go
same place--that's all. You talkee big fool, that velly superstich."
He looked at Van fiercely to disguise a great alarm, a fear that he
might, after all, be dismissed in the break-up impending.

Van shrugged his shoulders.

"Sentenced for life. All right, Algy, if your cooking kills us off, at
least, as the brave young husband remarked, it will all be in the
family."

Algy still looked as fierce as one of his heathen idols.

"You t'ink velly smart," he said, still concealing his feelings.
"Lats!" and with that he went out to chop some wood.

"Batten me into the pantry!" said Napoleon. "I'll bet old Algy'd board
the outlaw himself, fer you, Van, squall and all."

"That horse ain't human," Gettysburg exploded anew. "Van, you can't
ride no such Fourth-of-July procession!"

"Shut up!" murmured Van, with a gesture towards the room where Beth and
her maid were dining. He added aloud: "The chances are we'll find he's
a cheap Sunday-school picnic. Napoleon, you and Cayuse go out and
prepare his mind for work."

"Aye, aye," said Napoleon rising to go, "but I wish we had some
soothin' syrup, skipper."

He and the Indian were heard to depart, by Beth, sitting back in her
chair. She was greatly alarmed by all she had heard of vengeful
convicts and the vicious horse, and could eat no more for nervous dread.

"That horse has killed his man, and you know it," said Gettysburg in a
whisper that the girl distinctly overhead. "Boy, boy, let the Injun
ride him first."

"There, there, ease off," Van answered quietly. "You keep the women
entertained about the mill while Suvy and I are debating."

He gulped down a last drink of coffee, silenced the miner's further
remonstrances, and departed by way of the kitchen door.

Beth arose hurriedly and hastened forth, in