supper before
they hurried back through the garden. One would think that they were on
their way to a dance, so eager they were.

They dug themselves trenches in various parts of the garden, laid
themselves gleefully upon their stomachs, and proceeded to exchange,
at the top of their strong, young voices, ideas upon the subject of
claim-jumping, and to punctuate their remarks with leaden periods
planted neatly and with precision in the immediate vicinity of one of
the four.

They had some trouble with Donny, because he was always jumping up that
he might yell the louder when one of the enemy was seen to step about
uneasily whenever a bullet pinged closer than usual, and the rifles
began to bark viciously now and then. It really was unsafe for one to
dance a clog, with flapping arms and taunting laughter, within range of
those rises, and they told Donny so.

They ordered him back to the house; they threw clods of earth at his
bare legs; they threatened and they swore, but it was not until Wally
got him by the collar and shook him with brotherly thoroughness that
Donny retreated in great indignation to the house.

They were just giving themselves wholly up to the sport of sending
little spurts of loose earth into the air as close as was safe to
Stanley, and still much too close for his peace of mind or that of
his fellows, when Donny returned unexpectedly with the shotgun and an
enthusiasm for real bloodshed.

He fired once from the thicket of currant bushes, and, from the
remarks which Stanley barked out in yelping staccato, he punctured that
gentleman's person in several places with the fine shot of which the
charge consisted. He would have fired again if the recoil had not thrown
him quite off his balance, and it is possible that someone would have
been killed as a result. For Stanley began firing with murderous intent,
and only the dusk and Good Indian's opportune arrival prevented serious
trouble.

Good Indian had talked long with Miss Georgie, and had agreed with
her that, for the present at least, there must be no violence. He had
promised her flatly that he would do all in his power to keep the peace,
and he had gone again to the Indian camp to see if Peppajee or some of
his fellows could give him any information about Saunders.

Saunders had disappeared unaccountably, after a surreptitious conference
with Baumberger the day before, and it was that which Miss Georgie had
to tell him. Saunders was in the ha