Half an hour after he had come to the dugout Thornton left it.  For Clayton would not talk further and would not let him stay.

“I got a horse out there,” he had said irritably.  “I can get along.  I’m going to move on in the morning.  So long, Buck.”

So Thornton went back to his horse, wondering if, when tomorrow came, Jimmie Clayton would not indeed be moving on, moving on like little Jo to the land where men will be given an even break, where they will be “given their chance.”  His foot was in the stirrup when he heard Clayton’s voice calling.  He went back into the dugout.  The light was out and it was very dark.

“What is it, Jimmie?” he asked.

“I was thinking, Buck,” came the halting answer, “that ... if you don’t care ...  I will shake hands.”

Thornton put out his hand a little eagerly and his strong fingers closed tightly upon the thin nervous fingers of Jimmie Clayton.  Then he went out without speaking.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SHOW DOWN

Upon the first day of the month the stage leaving the Rock Creek Mines in the early morning carried a certain long, narrow lock-box carefully bestowed under the seat whereon sat Hap Smith and the guard.  Also a single passenger:  a swarthy little man with ink-black hair plastered down close upon a low, atavistic forehead and with small ink-black eyes.  In Dry Town beyond the mountains, to which he was evidently now returning from the mines, he was known as Blackie, bartender of the Last Chance saloon.  This morning he had been abroad as early as the earliest; he seemed to take a bright interest in everything, from the harnessing of the four horses to the taking on of mail bags and boxes.  In a moment when Hap Smith, before the mine superintendent’s cabin, was rolling a cigarette preparatory to the long drive, Blackie even stepped forward briskly and gave the guard a hand with the long, narrow lock-box.

Keen eyed and watchful as Blackie was he failed to see a man who never lost sight of him or of the stage until it rolled out of the mining camp through the early morning.  The man, unusually tall, wearing black shaggy chaps, grey soft shirt and neck-handkerchief and a large black hat, kept the stage in view from around the corner of the wood shed standing back of the superintendent’s cabin.  Then, swinging up to the back of a rangy granite-coloured roan, he turned into the road.

“We’re playing to win this time, Comet,” he said softly.  “And, as we said all along, Blackie’s the capper for their game.  Shake a foot, Comet, old boy.  Maybe at the end of a hard day’s work we’ll look in on ... her.”

When, an hour later, the stage made its brief stop in Miller’s Flat to take on mail bags Blackie was leaning out smoking a cigar and looking about him alertly.  A lounger near the post-office door turned to watch in great seeming idleness.  His eyes met the bartender’s for a second and he nodded casually.