gun! Why, it begins to look like a big summer for me."

Bill slept well that night, for now that he knew the game which was
going on he felt sure that sooner or later he would take a hand in it.
Just how or when the hand would fall he could not tell, but that did
not worry him in the least, inasmuch as he already held the trumps. It
seemed that a kindly fortune had guided him to the Aurora; that fate
had decreed he should avenge the wrongs of Ponatah. The handy-man fell
asleep with a smile upon his lips.

The first ship arrived that very evening, and the next day Doctor
Slayforth in person appeared at the Aurora. He was a thin, restless
man with weak and shifting eyes; he said grace at dinner, giving
thanks for the scanty rations of hash and brown beans over which his
hungry workmen were poised like cormorants. The Aurora had won the
name of a bad feeder, but its owner seemed satisfied with his meal.
Later Bill overheard him talking with his superintendent.

"I'm disappointed with the clean-ups," Slayforth confessed. "The pay
appears to be pinching out."

"She don't wash like she sampled, that's a fact," said Black Jack.

"I'm afraid we shall have to practise economies--"

"Look here! If you aim to cut down the grub, don't try it," counseled
Berg. "It's rotten now."

"Indeed? There appeared to be plenty, and the quality was excellent. I
fear you encourage gluttony, and nothing so interferes with work. We
must effect a saving somehow; there is too great a variation between
theoretical and actual values."

"Huh! You better try feeding hay for a while," sourly grumbled the
superintendent. "If you ain't getting what you aimed to get it's
because it ain't in the cards."

This conversation interested Bill, for it proved that the robbers had
helped themselves with a liberal hand, but how they had managed to
appropriate enough gold to noticeably affect the showing of the
winter's work intensely mystified him; it led him to believe that
Black Jack and Denny were out for a homestake.

That such was indeed the case and that Slevin was not the only thief
Bill soon discovered, for after the next clean-up he slipped away
through the twilight and took stand among the alders outside the rear
window of the shack on the hill. From his point of concealment he
could observe all that went on inside.

It was a familiar scene. By the light of an oil lamp Black Jack was
putting the final touches to the clean-up. Two gold pans, hea