yes was taking stock
of the situation. Big Bill blocked the doorway. The table was in front
of the window. Unless he could fight his way out, there was no escape
for him. He was trapped.

Quietly Gordon looked from one to another. He read no hope in the eyes
of any.

"I'm not spying on you. My horse is lame. You can see that for yourself.
All I asked was a night's lodging."

"Under another name than your own, you damned sneak."

The field agent did not understand the fury of the man, because he
did not know that these miners were working the claim under a defective
title and that they had jumped to the conclusion that he had come to get
evidence against them. But he knew that never in his life had he been
in a tighter hole. In another minute they would attack him. Whether it
would run to murder he could not tell. At the best he would be hammered
helpless.

But no evidence of this knowledge appeared in his manner.

"I didn't give my last name because there is a prejudice against me in
this country," he explained in an even voice.

He wondered as he spoke if he had better try to fling himself through
the window sash. There might be a remote chance that he could make it.

The miner at the table killed this possibility by rising and standing
squarely in the road.

"Look out! He's got a gat," warned Macy.

Gordon fervently wished he had. But he was unarmed. While his eyes
quested for a weapon he played for time.

"You can't get away with this, you know. The United States Government
is back of me. It's known I left the Willow Creek Camp. I'll be traced
here."

Through Gordon's mind there flashed a word of advice once given him by
a professional prize-fighter: "If you get in a rough house, don't wait
for the other fellow to hit first."

They were crouching for the attack. In another moment they would be upon
him. Almost with one motion he stooped, snatched up by the leg a heavy
stool, and sprang to the bed upon which he had been sitting.

The four men closed with him in a rush. They came at him low, their
heads protected by uplifted arms. His memory brought to him a picture of
the whitewashed gridiron of a football field, and in it he saw a vision
of safety.

The stool crashed down upon Big Bill Macy's head. Gordon hurdled the
crumpling figure, plunged between hands outstretched to seize him, and
over the table went through the window, taking the flimsy sash with him.

CHAPTER XXI

A NEW WAY OF LEA