A curious piece of business was going on here. A man was engaged in digging a shallow ditch, about six feet long, while five others stood around and watched—silently, and somehow sinisterly.
These were gun-heeled men dressed alike in black. And it was their horses, evidently, that stood bunched at the other end of the clearing, near a lean-to.
There was an ominous note about the proceedings that caused Evans to slip silently out of leather and glide unnoticed into the shadow of a tree trunk. In the quick glance he looped around the camp, he recognized here a dry diggings. Two buckets stood near fresh-turned earth on the rocky hillside. And down near the clay cut-bank at the stream’s edge was the familiar miner’s device—the rocker. In the center of the clearing, on the upturned roots of a tree stump, a few articles of clothing were hung to dry.
Even in the descending dusk, the deathly pallor of the man digging the trench was obvious. Sweat rolled down his leathery, weather-beaten face. And now he threw off his black felt hat—to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand—and exposed a shock of gray hair.
The leader of the group watching, a big, heavy-set man with a jet black beard, seemed to grow impatient.
“C’mon Farrell,” he rasped. “It’s deep enough—and we ain’t got all day to waste.”
Evans breathed softly and the shadows around his eyes darkened. Slowly, his lean hands reached down to his holsters.
The gray-haired man called Farrell stopped shoveling earth and stepped out of the trench. He fronted the leader, pale but defiant, and shook his fist at him.
“Some day,” he cried hoarsely, “yuh’ll pay for this coldblooded murder.”
“Button yore lip,” snapped the black-beard. “And get back there.” He towered over the lean, wiry miner, gripped his arm, and—
“Not so fast, gents.”
At the sound of the voice that drifted casually to them from across the clearing, the black-clad men whipped around like mongrels with tin-cans tied to their tails. They dove for hardware with practiced speed—then came up abruptly as they caught sight of a figure detach itself from a tree and move forward until he stood beneath the end of a low, leafy branch.
“Who are yuh?” cried the leader fiercely. “And what do yuh want here?” Two fox-eyes sat high up on his broad, pocked face. They tried to pierce the dusk to identify this intruder. The men behind him scowled darkly.
But the stranger’s face was shadowed by hat and branch; and the features blurred. There was, however, no mistaking the identity and menace of the two black guns that jutted from his fists.
“I’m a right close friend of Mister Colt,” drawled Evans. He wiggled the weapons suggestively. “Better tell yore amigos to remain hitched till I ask some questions—”
His right-hand gun bucked suddenly as he laid a shot down across the feet of a lank, scar-faced member of the black-clad band. The latter, on the far end of the shallow ditch, apparently thinking himself unobserved, had reached for his six-shooter. He changed his mind abruptly as the dirt showered his feet; and his hand froze to his side.
“I ain’t foolin’,” observed Evans calmly. A thin coil of blue-white smoke drifted lazily from the gaping black muzzle of his gun. He made a loose, idle shape standing there in the blur of the tree. But there was a grim threat of violence in the subtle undercurrent of his drawling voice, and the unexpectedness of his appearance.
Into the gray-haired miner’s faded blue eyes leaped a sudden gleam of hope.
“Whoever yuh are mister,” he cried desperately, “yuh got to help me. These hyenas—” He moved to step away from the trench.
“Stay put, Farrell!” roared the pock-faced man, still grasping the miner’s arm in his huge, hairy paw. “And shut up! And yuh, mister, if yuh want to keep yore nose clean, stay out of someone else’s business.” His glance flared bellicosely at the armed man confronting him.
Bide Evans’ skin tightened around his lips, and his gray eyes, flecked with queer lights, glinted oddly. Yet when he spoke, it was in the same deceptively mild voice.
“Yuh’re a stubborn gent,” he said evenly. “But I’m kind of patient myself. Matter of fact, I’m goin’ to count all the way up to three. If yuh don’t let go of Mr. Farrell’s arm when I get up there—I’m goin’ to put a bullet through yore right knee cap. I saw a man once who couldn’t use his leg for four years after that happened to him—”
With a baffled cry of rage, the leader released Farrell, thrust him forward and sent him sprawling on his face into the dirt.
A pulse high up in Evans’ temple began to pound. But he relaxed as he watched the gray-haired man pick himself up. Then he put a question to him.
“What was that yuh were diggin’ there, Farrell?”
“My grave!” cried the latter, hoarsely. “Them claim-jumpers rode into my camp ten minutes ago, stole my gold and told me to start shovelin’ dirt—”
“Yuh lyin’ son!” roared the heavy-set leader. “Yuh’re the one who jumped this claim. It’s registered in the name of a friend of mine.” He gave vent to a short laugh, incomprehensible to the Texan.
“That ain’t true,” declared Farrell hoarsely, appealing to Evans. “Me and my pard been prospectin’ Dutch Diggin’s two weeks now—since the Gulch’s sheriff got himself stretched. Yesterday we located this claim, and Ming Foy—that’s my pard—went to register it at the Claims Office in Hangman’s Gulch.”
The fox-eyed man sneered and laughed sarcastically.
“Farrell’s talkin’ through his hat,” he said, addressing Evans. “Don’t know why I have to explain this to yuh. But this claim was worked three weeks ago. Then Matt had to go to Frisco, so he asked me to register it for him. Wal—I clean forgot to do it till yesterday. Then I decided to come out here to make sure everythin’ was all right—when I run into this windbag, Farrell. The whole town knows he’s a liar. Bet there ain’t even no Ming Foy. Who ever heard of makin’ a Chinaman a pardner? So the boys and me figgered on throwin’ a little scare into him.”
“It ain’t so,” cried Farrell, desperately, again to Evans. “Ming Foy’s my pardner and as good as any white man. And I am a stranger in these parts. They don’t know me in town—’cept Larson. He owns the general store. I don’t even know how this hombre here learned my name. Never seen him before in my life.” He hesitated a fraction as a thought semed to strike him. “By the great horn spoon, I do. Ming went to town to enter the claim. If someone else’s name is on this piece of diggin’, it’s—it’s because they stole the information from Ming and entered it themselves. That’s why Ming didn’t get back this mornin’ like he was supposed to. And they weren’t foolin—” he pointed to the five men. “They were goin’ to fill that grave with Ed Farrell’s body.”
“Yuh’re loco,” declared the leader. “The claims clerk wouldn’t register the same claim twice—would he?” His manner suddenly became friendly. He fetched a small, leather bag from his pocket and tossed it to Farrell. “Tell yuh what, Farrell. That’s the gold I took from yuh ’cause it rightfully belongs to my friend Matt. Wal—yuh go to town, and if yuh don’t find Matt Evans’ name down on the record—”
“Whose name?” A breath seemed to stir the leaves over the Texan’s head—although no wind blew.
The big man squinted hard, trying again to make out the face of the man under the tree. But the dusk had deepened, and if it was difficult before, it became impossible now.
“Matt Evans—” he answered.
“Be back from Frisco tomorrer,” put in