t--when Beatrice was safe in his hands.

"It may seem like a joke to you, but it doesn't to me," he answered
shortly. Nor was he able to keep his anger entirely from his voice.
"Everything that girl does you think is perfect. Instead of encouraging
her in her meanness you ought to help me out." His tones harshened, and
he lost the fine edge of his self-control. "I've stood enough nonsense
from that little--"

Seemingly, Neilson made no perceptible movement in his chair. What
change there was showed merely in the lines of his face, and
particularly in the light that dwelt in the gray, straightforward eyes.
"Don't finish it," he ordered simply.

For an instant eyes met eyes in bitter hatred--and Chan Heminway began
to wonder just where he would seek cover in case matters got to a
shooting stage. But Ray's gaze broke before that of his leader. "I'm not
going to say anything I shouldn't," he protested sullenly. "But this
doesn't look like you're helping out my case any. You told me you'd do
everything you could for me. You even went so far as to say you'd take
matters in your own hands--"

"And I will, in reason. I'm keeping away the rest of the boys so you can
have a chance. But if you think I'm going to tie her up to anybody
against her will, you're barking up the wrong tree. She's my daughter,
and her happiness happens to be my first object." Then his voice
changed, good-humored again. "But cool down, boy--wait till you hear
everything I've got to tell you, and you'll feel better. Of course, you
know what it's about--"

"I suppose--Hiram Melville's claim."

"That's it. Of course we don't know that he had a claim--but he had a
pocket full of the most beautiful nuggets you ever want to see. No one
knows that fact but me--I saw 'em by accident--and I got 'em now. You
know he's always had an idea that the Yuga country was worth
prospecting, but we always laughed at him. Of course it is a pocket
country; but it's my opinion he found a pocket that would make many a
placer look sick, before he died."

"But he might have got the nuggets somewheres else--"

"Hold your horses. Where would he get 'em? There's something else
suspicious too. He wrote a letter, the day before he died, and addressed
it to Ezra Melville, somewhere in Oregon. He must just about got it by
now--maybe a few days ago. He had the clerk mail it for him, and got him
to witness it, saying it was his will--and what did that old hound have
to will except