further, please," he said curtly, and
Denbigh closed his mouth and dropped back on his knees to his
floor-mopping.

Talbot drew out his pistol, glanced over it, and buckled it round his
waist.

When the room was reduced to some appearance of dry comfort again, the
two men sat down to their luncheon in silence. Talbot was too excited to
swallow a mouthful of the food. Although so calm outwardly, and with
such absolute command over his passion, anger was with him, like a flame
at white heat, rushing through his veins.

As they sat they heard the miners tramping by the cabin door, and saw
their heads pass the window as they went out to get their mid-day food.
Denbigh himself, as soon as he had finished, made an excuse and
departed. He was eager to join his companions before they came back to
work and hear some more delectable details of the row than he could get
from Talbot. When all his men had filed out from the tunnel, Talbot went
into the passage and walked up to the heavy wooden door and shut it,
barring it with a steady hand. This was the main entrance to the shaft,
and at the present time the only one. The door was never, under ordinary
circumstances, closed, but stood open all day for the men to pass in and
out to their work. When he had fastened it he walked back, turned into
his own cabin, and took up his place at the window. From here he could
see the men as they came back. They began to return earlier than was
their wont, knowing that trouble was in the air, and each one was
anxious to be on the spot for the crisis. All through the lunch hour
Talbot's words and the possibility of Dick Marley being obliged to
"quit" was the sole topic of conversation.

Dick talked largely, and with a great many of the miners his oaths, and
the imputations of cowardice he heaped on his employer, carried the day.
Some of the others, quieter men with keener perceptions, merely listened
in silence, and shook their heads when appealed to for an opinion.

"I dunno. He's got grit," remarked one between mouthfuls of bread and
bacon, in response to a sanguinary burst of Dick's.

"He's a slip," answered Dick, contemptuously.

"But a dead sure shot."

"He'd funk it," said Dick, his face paling a little. "He'd never stand
up to me. He's got no fight in him. Why, he's managed that claim there
now for two years and he's never so much as fired a shot over it. Now
that fellow Robinson wot's got the claim a mile farther up the creek,
h