ed up a trampled bit of
paper near the stove. Corey's list. Left-handedly he piled up the
money, counting, comparing.

"Quick! the dust!" ordered the Colonel. Out of a left hip-pocket a
long, tight-packed buckskin bag. Another from a side-pocket, half the
size and a quarter as full.

"That's mine," said Jack, and made a motion to recover.

"Let it alone. Turn out everything. Nuggets!"

A miner's chamois belt unbuckled and flung heavily down. The scales
jingled and rocked; every pocket in the belt was stuffed.

"Where's the rest?"

"There ain't any rest. That's every damned pennyweight."

"Maybe we ought to weigh it, and see if he's lying?"

"'Fore God it's all! Let me go!" He had kept looking through the crack
of the door.

"Reckon it's about right," said Keith.

"'Tain't right! There's more there'n I took. My stuff's there too. For
Christ's sake, let me go!"

"Look here, Jack, is the little bag yours?"

Jack wet his dry lips and nodded "Yes."

The Colonel snatched up the smaller bag and thrust it into the man's
hands. Jack made for the door. The Colonel stopped him.

"Better take to the woods," he said, with a motion back towards the
window. The Colonel opened the half-closed door and looked out, as Jack
pushed aside the table, tore away the red curtain, hammered at the
sash, then, desperate, set his shoulder at it and forced the whole
thing out. He put his maimed hand on the sill and vaulted after the
shattered glass.

They could see him going like the wind up towards his own shack at the
edge of the wood, looking back once or twice, doubling and tacking to
keep himself screened by the haphazard, hillside cabins, out of sight
of the lynchers down at the river.

"Will you stay with this?" the Colonel had asked Keith hurriedly,
nodding at the treasure-covered table, and catching up the
finger-marked block before Jack was a yard from the window.

"Yes," Keith had said, revolver still in hand and eyes on the man
Minook was to see no more. The Colonel met the Boy running breathless
up the bank.

"Can't hold 'em any longer," he shouted; "you're takin' it pretty easy
while a man's gettin' killed down here."

"Stop! Wait!" The Colonel floundered madly through the slush and mud,
calling and gesticulating, "I've got the thief!"

Presto all the backs of heads became faces.

"Got the money?" screamed Maudie, uncovering her eyes. She had gone to
the execution, but after the rope was brought, her nerve f