s a boy
caught stealing apples when he realized what he had done. Oh, but your
Daddy was a man, even if he did have a temper, my boy!"

His eyes sparkled with a fervid love of the game of his college days,
and he seemed to have dismissed the Croix d'Or from his mind, as if it
were of no importance. Nor did he, during the course of that visit,
refer to it again. He made exception, when he shook hands with Dick at
the train.

"Don't let anybody bluff you," he said. "Remember that a brave front
alone often wins. If you fail with the Croix the world is still big,
and--well--you're one of my legatees. Good-by. Good luck!"

Again Dick endured the rumbling of trains through long hours, the
change from one to another at small junctions, the day and night in a
stage coach whose springs seemed to have lost resiliency, and the
discourse of two drummers, Hebraic, the chill aloofness of a
supercilious mining expert new to the district, and the heated
discussions of two drill runners, veterans, off to a new field, and
celebrating the journey with a demijohn. The latter were union men,
and long after lie was tired of their babel they broached a
conversation which brought Dick to a point of eager listening.

"Yes, you see," one of the men asserted; "they got the goods on him.
Thompson had been a good delegate until he got the finger itch, then
he had an idea he could use the miners' union to scratch 'em. He held
up one or two small mines before the big guns got wise. That got him
to feelin' his oats, and he went for bigger game."

"But how did they get him?" the other runner insisted.

"They got him over here to where we're goin--Goldpan. He held up some
fellers that's got a mine called the Craw Door, or somethin' like
that. Fetched three of his pals from Denver with him. They called
'emselves miners! God! Miners nothin'! They'd worked around Cripple
Creek long enough to get union cards, but two of 'em was prize
fighters, and the other used to be bouncer at the old Alcazar when she
was the hottest place to lose money that ever turned a crooked card. I
remember there one time when----"

"Nobody asked you about that," growled the other man. "What I'm
interested in is about this big stiff, Thompson."

"Him? Oh, yes. Where was I? Well, he fixed things for a hold-up. Was
goin' to get these fellers at the Craw Door to untie their pokes, but
they don't stand for it. He packs a meetin' with a lot of swampers
that don't know nothin' a