handle Plimsoll." Then
Sam broke clear from Mormon and hurried after Sandy and Westlake.

Sandy walked up the street without hurry and, as they had made way from
the car, men gave him space. The nearer he got to Plimsoll's place the
more room they allowed him. They melted away from the car on all sides,
leaving it clearest between the machine and the entrance to the gambling
shack. The chauffeur preserved his bored look and carved attitude. His
face was lined with lack of sleep and the strain of driving at high
speed over unknown mountain roads, powdered gray with dust. He seemed
almost an automaton. The man with the square face looked alertly about
him at the crowd, giving place to the lean tall man walking leisurely up
the street, high lights touching the metal of the two guns that hung in
holsters well to the front of his hips. Sandy's face was serene, but
there was no mistaking the fact that the star performer of the moment
had come upon the stage. Five paces back of him strolled Sam, his eyes
dancing with the excitement that did not show in Sandy's steel-gray
orbs. Westlake followed to one side, by the advice of Sam.

The stranger saw that Sandy walked lightly, on the balls of his feet,
with a springy tread. He appraised his face, frown-lines appeared
between his eyebrows and he half rose in his seat. Then the door of the
cabin opened and the man who had volunteered to find Plimsoll emerged.

"He's comin' right along," he announced.

It was Plimsoll's way--the professional gambler's way--to play his cards
until he knew himself beaten. He had been hoping for the arrival of this
man. He represented capital, the development of the camp into a mining
town, the movement of money, the boom of quick sales. With his
backing--once the camp understood what it meant to all of them--he might
turn the tables on Sandy Bourke. The protection of Capital was powerful.

He came out licking his lips nervously, with a swift survey that took in
the setting of the stage prepared for his entrance. His eyes, shifting
from the big machine, as if drawn by something beyond his will, focused
on the figure of Sandy, easy but sinister in its capacity to avoid all
melodrama. Half-way between door and car he halted.

"Plimsoll?" said the stranger. "I am Keith."

The light was perceptibly changing. Faces of men came out of the
shadows, pale but visible. The lights of the machine changed from yellow
to pale lemon, the flares outside the cabin