might have fought them
off if you'd been on deck, and made the location yourself! Where have
you been?"

Van smiled. The neatness of the whole arrangement began to be
presented to his mind.

"Oh, I was out of the way all right," he said. "My friends took care
of that."

"I thought there was something in the wind, all along," imparted the
little cashier. "Bostwick and McCoppet have been thicker than thieves
for a week. But the money they needed wasn't Bostwick's. I wired to
New York to get his standing--and he's got about as much as a pin. But
the girl stood in, you bet! She's got enough--and dug up thirty
thousand bucks to handle the crowd's expenses."

Van straightened up slowly.

"The girl?"

"Miss Kent--engaged to Bostwick--you ought to know," replied the man
behind the counter. "She's put up the dough and I guess she's in the
game, for she turned it all over like a man."

Van laughed, suddenly, almost terribly.

"Oh, hell, Rick, come out and git a drink!" he said. "Here," as he
noted a bottle in the desk, "give me some of that!"

Rickart gave him the bottle and a glass. He poured a stiff amber
draught and raised it on high, a wild, fevered look in his eyes.

"Here's to the gods of law and order!" he said. "Here's to faith,
hope, and charity. Here's to friendship, honor, and loyalty. Here's
to the gallant little minority that love their neighbors as themselves.
Give me perfidy or give me death! Hurray for treason, strategy, and
spoils!"

He drank the liquid fire at one reckless gulp, and laughing again, in
ghastly humor, lurched suddenly out at the open door and across to the
nearest saloon.

Rickart, in sudden apprehension for the "boy" he genuinely loved,
called out to him shrilly, but in vain. Then he scurried to the
telephone, rang up the office of the sheriff, and presently had a
deputy on the wire.

"Say, friend," he called, "if Bostwick or McCoppet should return to
camp to-night, warn them to keep off the street. Van Buren's in, and I
don't want the boy to mix himself in trouble."

"All right," came the answer, "I'm on."

In less than an hour the town was "on." Men returning by the scores
and dozens, nineteen out of every twenty exhausted, angered with
disappointment, and clamorous for refreshments, filled the streets,
saloons, and eating houses, all of them talking of the "Laughing Water"
claim, and all of them ready to sympathize with Van--especially at his
expense.