and the crowd scattered. The
two policemen went back to keep order, accompanied by the rest of the
allies, while Corliss and the colonel, followed by the Wolf-Skin Cap
and Del Bishop, proceeded up the street.

"Blood and sweat! Blood and sweat!" Colonel Trethaway exulted. "Talk
about putting the vim into one! Why, I'm twenty years younger if I'm a
day! Corliss, your hand. I congratulate you, I do, I heartily do.
Candidly, I didn't think it was in you. You're a surprise, sir, a
surprise!"

"And a surprise to myself," Corliss answered. The reaction had set in,
and he was feeling sick and faint. "And you, also, are a surprise.
The way you handled that stool--"

"Yes, now! I flatter myself I did fairly well with it. Did you
see--well, look at that!" He held up the weapon in question, still
tightly clutched, and joined in the laugh against himself.

"Whom have I to thank, gentlemen?"

They had come to a pause at the corner, and the man they had rescued
was holding out his hand.

"My name is St. Vincent," he went on, "and--"

"What name?" Del Bishop queried with sudden interest.

"St. Vincent, Gregory St. Vincent--"

Bishop's fist shot out, and Gregory St. Vincent pitched heavily into
the snow. The colonel instinctively raised the stool, then helped
Corliss to hold the pocket-miner back.

"Are you crazy, man?" Vance demanded.

"The skunk! I wish I'd hit 'm harder!" was the response. Then, "Oh,
that's all right. Let go o' me. I won't hit 'm again. Let go o' me,
I'm goin' home. Good-night."

As they helped St. Vincent to his feet, Vance could have sworn he heard
the colonel giggling. And he confessed to it later, as he explained,
"It was so curious and unexpected." But he made amends by taking it
upon himself to see St. Vincent home.

"But why did you hit him?" Corliss asked, unavailingly, for the fourth
time after he had got into his cabin.

"The mean, crawlin' skunk!" the pocket-miner gritted in his blankets.
"What'd you stop me for, anyway? I wish I'd hit 'm twice as hard!"

CHAPTER XII

"Mr. Harney, pleased to meet you. Dave, I believe, Dave Harney?" Dave
Harney nodded, and Gregory St. Vincent turned to Frona. "You see, Miss
Welse, the world is none so large. Mr. Harney and I are not strangers
after all."

The Eldorado king studied the other's face until a glimmering
intelligence came to him. "Hold on!" he cried, as St. Vincent started
to speak, "I got my finger on yo