ntinue to do so just as long as the lure of gold
could tempt his victims.

Then came the inevitable. In a few days it became apparent that the
news of the "strike" had percolated abroad. Beasley's attempt at
secrecy had lasted him just sufficiently long to establish himself as
the chief trader. Then came the rush from the outside.

It was almost magical the change that occurred in one day. The place
became suddenly alive with strangers from Leeson Butte and Bay Creek,
and even farther afield. Legitimate traders came to spy out the land.
Loafers came in and sat about waiting for developments. Gamblers,
suave, easy, ingratiating, foregathered and started the ball of high
stakes rolling. And in their wake came all that class of carrion which
is ever seeking something for nothing. But the final brand of
lawlessness was set on the camp by the arrival of a number of jaded,
painted women, who took up their abode in a disused shack sufficiently
adjacent to Beasley's store to suit their purposes. It was all very
painful, all very deplorable. Yet it was the perfectly natural
evolution of a successful mining camp--a place where, before the firm
hand of Morality can obtain its restraining grip, human nature just
runs wild.

The seedling had grown. Its rank tendrils were everywhere reaching out
and choking all the better life about it. Its seeds were scattered
broadcast and had germinated as only such seeds can. It only remained
for the husbandman to gaze regretful and impotent upon his handiwork.
His hand had planted the seedling, and now--already the wilderness was
beyond all control.

Something of this was in the Padre's mind as he sat in his doorway
awaiting Buck's return for the night. The dusk was growing, and
already the shadows within the ancient stockade were black with
approaching night. The waiting man had forgotten his pipe, so deeply
was he engrossed with his thoughts, and it rested cold in his powerful
hand.

He sat on oblivious of everything but that chain of calm reasoning
with which he tried to tell himself that the things happening down
there on the banks of the Yellow Creek must be. He told himself that
he had always known it; that the very fact of this lawlessness pointed
the camp's prosperity, and showed how certainly the luck had come to
stay. Later, order would be established out of the chaos, but for the
moment there was nothing to be done but--wait. All this he told
himself, but it left him dissatisfi