“It was here—­see?” She stooped down.

Some of the men pulled the bed farther out, so that they, too, could pass round and see.

“This piece o’ board goes down so slick you’d never know it lifted out.”  She fitted it in with shaking hands, and then with her nails and a hairpin got it out.  “And way in, underneath, I had this box.  I always set it on a flat stone.”  She spoke as if this oversight were the thief’s chief crime.  “See?  Like that.”

She fitted the cigar-box into unseen depths of space and then brought it out again, wet and muddy.  The ground was full of springs hereabouts, and the thaw had loosed them.

“Boys!” She stood up and held out the box.  “Boys! it was full.”

Eloquently she turned it upside down.

“How much do you reckon you had?” She handed the muddy box to the nearest sympathiser, sat down on the fur-covered bed, and wiped her eyes.

“Any idea?”

“I weighed it all over again after I got in from the Gold Nugget the night we went on the stampede.”

As she sobbed out the list of her former possessions, Judge Corey took it down on the back of a dirty envelope.  So many ounces of dust, so many in nuggets, so much in bills and coin, gold and silver.  Each item was a stab.

“Yes, all that—­all that!” she jumped up wildly, “and it’s gone!  But we got to find it.  What you hangin’ round here for?  Why, if you boys had any natchral spunk you’d have the thief strung up by now.”

“We got to find him fust.”

“You won’t find him standin’ here.”

They conferred afresh.

“It must have been somebody who knowed where you kept the stuff.”

“N-no.”  Her red eyes wandered miserably, restlessly, to the window.  Over the red half-curtain French Charlie and Butts looked in.  They had not been to the meeting.

Maudie’s face darkened as she caught sight of the Canadian.

“Oh, yes, you can crow over me now,” she shouted shrilly above the buzz of comment and suggestion.  The Canadian led the way round to the door, and the two men crowded in.

“You just get out,” Maudie cried in a fury.  “Didn’t I turn you out o’ this and tell you never——­”

“Hol’ on,” said French Charlie in a conciliatory tone.  “This true ’bout your losin’——­”

“Yes, it’s true; but I ain’t askin’ your sympathy!”

He stopped short and frowned.

“Course not, when you can get his.”  Under his slouch-hat he glowered at the Colonel.

Maudie broke into a volley of abuse.  The very air smelt of brimstone.  When finally, through sheer exhaustion, she dropped on the side of the bed, the devil prompted French Charlie to respond in kind.  She jumped up and turned suddenly round upon Corey, speaking in a voice quite different, low and hoarse:  “You asked me, Judge, if anybody knew where I kept my stuff.  Charlie did.”

The Canadian stopped in the middle of a lurid remark and stared stupidly.  The buzz died away.  The cabin was strangely still.