five hundred dollars says--do it."

Beasley knew his men. And in every eye he saw that they were with him
now. Nor could anything have pleased him more than when Curly shouted
his sudden sympathy.

"Beasley's right, boys," he cried. "She's brought the rotten luck. She
must go. Who's to say whose turn it'll be next?"

"Bully for you," cried Beasley. "Curly's hit it. Who's the next victim
of the rotten luck of this Golden Woman?"

His final appeal carried the day. The men shouted a general approval,
and Beasley reveled inwardly in his triumph. He had played his hand
with all the skill at his command--and won. And now he was satisfied.
He knew he had started the ball rolling. It would grow. In a few hours
the majority of the camp would be with him. Then, when the time came,
he would play them for his own ends, and so pay off all his old
scores.

The Padre would be taken. He would see to that. The sheriff should
know every detail of Buck's intentions. Buck would ultimately be
taken--after being outlawed. And Joan--the proud beauty whom Buck was
in love with--well, if she got out with her life it would be about all
she would escape with.

Beasley felt very happy.

CHAPTER XXX

THE MOVING FINGER

The Padre stood at the top of the steps and looked out over the wide
stretching valley below him. His long day was drawing to a close, but
he felt no weariness of body. There was a weariness of mind, a
weariness of outlook. There was something gray and cold and hopeless
upon his horizon, something which left him regretful of all that which
lay within his view now.

There was a half smile in his eyes, as, for a moment, they rested on
the narrow indistinct trail which looked so far below him. He was
thinking of that apparition he had met only a few days back, the
apparition which had suddenly leapt out of his past. It was all very
strange, very wonderful, the working of those mysterious things which
make it certain that no page in a human creature's life can be turned
once and for all.

Yes, it was all very wonderful. The hand of Fate had begun to move
against him when he had greeted that starving fragment of humanity at
the trail-side, more than twenty years ago. It had moved steadily
since then in every detail of his life. It had been progressing in the
work he had done in the building of his farm. Its moving finger had
pointed every day of Buck's young life. In the necessities of those
poor gold-seekers it h