se at the coming of the leader. But this time there was a question
behind their eyes, and he read it in gloomy silence.

"Well?" asked Harry Masters.

In the old days not one of them would have dared to voice the question,
but now things were changing, and well Lord Nick could read the change
and its causes.

"Are you talking to me?" asked Nick, and he looked straight between the
eyes of Masters.

The glance of the other did not falter, and it maddened Nick.

"I'm talking to you," said Masters coolly enough. "What happened between
you and Donnegan?"

"What should happen?" asked Lord Nick.

"Maybe all this is a joke," said Masters bitterly. He was a square-built
man, with a square face and a wrinkled, fleshy forehead. In
intelligence, Nick ranked him first among the men. And if a new leader
were to be chosen there was no doubt as to where the choice of the men
would fall. No doubt that was why Masters put himself forward now, ready
to brave the wrath of the chief. "Maybe we're fooled," went on Masters.
"Maybe they ain't any call for you to fall out with Donnegan?"

"Maybe there's a call to find out this," answered Lord Nick. "Why did
you leave the mines? What are you doing up here?"

The other swallowed so hard that he blinked.

"I left the mines," he declared through his set teeth, "because I was
run off 'em."

"Ah," said Lord Nick, for the devil was rising in him, "I always had an
idea that you might be yellow, Masters."

The right hand of Masters swayed toward his gun, hesitated, and then
poised idly.

"You heard me talk?" persisted Lord Nick brutally. "I call you yellow.
Why don't you draw on me? I called you yellow, you swine, and I call the
rest of you yellow. You think you have me down? Why, curse you, if there
were thirty of your cut, I'd say the same to you!"

There was a quick shift, the three men faced Lord Nick, but each from a
different angle. And opposing them, he stood superbly indifferent, his
arms folded, his feet braced. His arms were folded, but each hand, for
all they knew, might be grasping the butt of a gun hidden away in his
clothes. Once they flashed a glance from face to face; but there was no
action. They were remembering only too well some of the wild deeds of
this giant.

"You think I'm through," went on Lord Nick. "Maybe I am--through with
you. You hear me talk?"

One by one, his eyes dared them, and one by one they took up the
challenge, struggled, and lowered their glan