of the road
he had not deigned another look on the men who had been ravening to
lynch him. He drove away as carelessly as if he alone were the only
human being within miles, and the partners gave a gasp of enjoyment.

"Good Lord! What a man!" exclaimed the elder, and his companion
answered in an equally admiring tone: "Isn't he, though! Just look at
these desperadoes, will you!"

With shuffling feet some of them were turning back toward the inviting
door in which the bartender stood with his dirty apron knotted into a
string before him. Some of the more voluble were accusing the others
of not having supported them, and loudly expounding the method of
attack that would have been successful. The man with red welts across
his face was swearing that if he ever got a chance he would "put a
rifle ball through Bully." The young man by the rock grinned and said:
"That's just about as close as he would ever dare come to that fellow.
Shoot him through the back at a half-mile range!"

The bartender suddenly appeared to remember the travelers, and ran
across the road.

"I'm sorry, gents," he said, "that I can't do more to show you the
way, but you see how it is. Go up there to that big rock that looks
like a bear's head, then angle off south-east, and you'll find a
trail. When you come to any crossin's, don't take 'em, but keep
straight on, and bimeby, about to-morrer, if you don't camp too long
to-night, you'll see a peak--high it is--with a yellow mark on it,
like a cross. Can't miss it. Right under it's the Croix Mine. You
leave the trail to cross a draw, look down, and there you are. So
long!"

He turned and ran back across the road in response to brawling shouts
from the men whose thirst seemed to have been renewed by their
encounter with the masterful man they called "Bully," and the
partners, glad to escape from such a place, headed their animals
upward into the hills.

CHAPTER II

THE CROIX D'OR

It was the day after the halt at the road house. Half-obliterated by
the debris of snowslide and melting torrents, the trail was hard to
follow. In some places the pack burros scrambled for a footing or
skated awkwardly with tiny hoofs desperately set to check their
descent, to be steadied and encouraged by the booming voice, deep as a
bell, of the man nearest them. Sometimes in dangerous spots where
shale slides threatened to prove unstable, his lean, grim face and
blue-gray eyes appeared apprehensive, and he b