The tide was turning against Steelman.  He was still a very rich man, but he seemed no longer to be a lucky one.  He brought in a dry well.  On another location the cable had pulled out of the socket and a forty-foot auger stem and bit lay at the bottom of a hole fifteen hundred feet deep.  His best producer was beginning to cough a weak and intermittent flow even under steady pumping.  And, to add to his troubles, a quiet little man had dropped into town to investigate one of his companies.  He was a Government agent, and the rumor was that he was gathering evidence.

Sanders met Thomas on the street.  He had not seen him since the prospector had made his wild ride for safety with the two outlaws hard on his heels.

“Glad you made it, Mr. Thomas,” said Dave.  “Good bit of strategy.  When they reached the notch, Shorty and Doble never once looked to see if we were around.  They lit out after you on the jump.  Did they come close to getting you?”

“It looked like bullets would be flyin’.  I won’t say who would ‘a’ got who if they had,” he said modestly.  “But I wasn’t lookin’ for no trouble.  I don’t aim to be one of these here fire-eaters, but I’ll fight like a wildcat when I got to.”  The prospector looked defiantly at Sanders, bristling like a bantam which has been challenged.

“We certainly owe you something for the way you drew the outlaws off our trail,” Dave said gravely.

“Say, have you heard how the Government is gettin’ after Steelman?  He’s a wily bird, old Brad is, but he slipped up when he sent out his advertisin’ for the Great Mogul.  A photographer faked a gusher for him and they sent it out on the circulars.”

Sanders nodded, without comment.

“Steelman can make ’em flow, on paper anyhow,” Thomas chortled.  “But he’s sure in a kettle of hot water this time.”

“Mr. Steelman is enterprising,” Dave admitted dryly.

“Say, Mr. Sanders, have you heard what’s become of Shorty and Doble?” the prospector asked, lapsing to ill-concealed anxiety.  “I see the sheriff has got a handbill out offerin’ a reward for their arrest and conviction.  You don’t reckon those fellows would bear me any grudge, do you?”

“No.  But I wouldn’t travel in the hills alone if I were you.  If you happened to meet them they might make things unpleasant.”

“They’re both killers.  I’m a peaceable citizen, as the fellow says.  O’ course if they crowd me to the wall—­”

“They won’t,” Dave assured him.

He knew that the outlaws, if the chance ever came for them, would strike at higher game than Thomas.  They would try to get either Crawford or Sanders himself.  The treasurer of the Jackpot did not fool himself with any false promises of safety.  The two men in the hills were desperate characters, game as any in the country, gun-fighters, and they owed both him and Crawford a debt they would spare no pains to settle in full.  Some day there would come an hour of accounting.