y steal?" demanded a voice.

"They just nat'rally didn't steal _nothin'_," said a heavy built,
square-jawed, clean-shaven man whom I guessed to be Buck Barry. "Not
while I was around."

"Yes," persisted the other, "but what was they after."

"Oh, an extry pair of boots, and a shirt, and some tobacco, et cetery,"
replied Buck Barry contemptuously.

"Let's see them," shouted several voices.

After a moment's delay two ragged and furtive Mexicans were dragged
before the assembly. A contemplative silence ensued. Then an elderly man
with a square gray beard spoke up.

"Well," said he deliberately, "airy man so low down and shif'less and
miserable as to go to stealin' boots and shirts and tobacco in this camp
is shore outside my corral. He sure must be a miserable person. Why'n
hell didn't Buck and Missou give him a few lifts with the toes of their
boots, and not come botherin' us with them?"

Both Barry and Jones started to reply, but Semple cut them short.

"They was going to do just that," he announced, "but I persuaded them to
bring this matter up before this meetin', because we got to begin to
take some measures to stop this kind of a nuisance. There's a lot of
undesirables driftin' into this camp lately. You boys all recall how
last fall we kep' our dust under our bunks or most anywhere, and felt
perfectly safe about it; but that ain't now. A man has to carry his dust
right with him. Now, if we can't leave our tents feeling our goods is
safe, what do you expect to do about it? We got to throw the fear of God
into the black hearts of these hounds."

At this juncture Jim, the sheriff, returned and leaned nonchalantly
against a tree, chewing a straw.

Accepting the point of view advanced by the chair, the miners decided
that the two thieves should be whipped and banished from camp. A strong
feeling prevailed that any man who, in this age of plenty, would descend
to petty thieving, was a poor, miserable creature to be pitied. Some
charitably inclined individual actually took up a small collection which
was presented to the thieves after they had received their punishment.

"And now, _vamos_, git!" advised Semple. "And spread the glad
tidings. We'll do the same by any more of you. Well, Jim?" he inquired
of the sheriff.

Jim shifted his straw from the right corner of his mouth to the left.

"That outfit don't eject worth a cuss," said he laconically.

"How many of them is there?" asked Semple.

"Two--and a