of the open windows that something
quite unusual was going on. Then a man came down the steps chuckling,
and Weston, who stopped him, inquired the cause of the commotion.

"Two or three of the boys we have no great use for are going out
to-night to the copper vein the Dryhurst people are opening up," said
the stranger. "Your partner has been setting up the drinks for them."

Weston was not pleased at this, but the other piece of information the
man gave him was interesting.

"Are they taking on men?" he asked.

"Anybody who can shovel. Sent down to Vancouver for men a day or two
ago."

"Then," said Weston, "why didn't this hotel-keeper tell me, instead of
sending me across to the sawmill?"

His informant laughed.

"Jake," he said, "is most too mean to live. He strikes you a dollar
for your breakfast and another for supper, though anybody else would
give you a square meal for a quarter. Guess that may have something to
do with it."

Weston nodded.

"It's very probable," he said. "They're evidently getting angry about
something inside there. What's the trouble?"

"Guess it's your partner," said the other man, with a grin. "It seems
Jake bought a horse from him; but you'd better go in and see. I
decided to pull out when one of them got an ax. Struck me it would be
kind of safer in my shanty."

He went down the stairway; and as Weston went up a raucous voice
reached him.

"The money!" it said. "The money or the horse! You hear me! Hand out
the blame money!"

Weston pushed open the door and stopped just inside it. The room was
big, and, as usual, crudely furnished, with uncovered walls and floor,
and a stove in the midst of it. A bar ran along part of one side, and
a man in a white shirt was just then engaged in hastily removing the
bottles from it. Another man, in blue shirt and duck trousers, stood
beside the stove, and he held a big ax which he swung suggestively. It
was evident that several of the others were runaway sailormen, who
have, since the days of Caribou, usually been found in the forefront
when there were perilous wagon bridges or dizzy railroad trestles to
be built in the Mountain Province. There was, however, nothing English
in their appearance.

"He wants his horse! Oh, bring it out!" sang the man with the ax.

There was a howl of approval from the cluster of men who sat on a
rough fir table; but the man behind the bar raised an expostulating
hand.

"Boys," he said, "you have got to be