McCoppet leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes.

“I didn’t know but what you’d like to sober up and lick him.”

Trimmer stared, shifted uneasily in his seat, and demanded: 

“Where?  Where is he at?”

“He’s going to Starlight to-morrow—­from up by the reservation—­from his claim.  If he don’t git back for a couple of days—­I could make it worth your while; and you could cash in for that time he licked you when you wasn’t in condition.”

Again Trimmer fidgeted.  “I guess he licked me fair enough.  I admit he’s all right in a scrap.  I ain’t holdin’ nuthin’ agin him.  Goldite’s good enough fer me.”

McCoppet knew the creature was afraid to meet his man—­that Trimmer’s attack on Van Buren, once before, had been planned with much deliberation, had amounted to an ambush, in point of fact, resulting in disaster to the bully.

“I counted on you to help me, Larry,” he said, drumming on the table with his fingers.  “You’re the only man of your kind with brains in all the camp.”

Trimmer had smoked his cigar to within an inch of his mouth.  He extinguished the fire and chewed up the stump voraciously.

“Say!” he suddenly ejaculated, leaping to his feet and coming around the table, “I can fix him all right,” and he lowered his voice to a whisper.  “Barger would give up a leg to git a show at Van Buren!”

“Barger?” echoed McCoppet.  “Matt?  But they got him!  Got ’em all.”

“Got nuthin’,” the lumberman ejaculated.  “What’s the good of all these lyin’ papers when I seen Matt myself, readin’ the piece about him goin’ back to the pen?”

McCoppet rose, went to the window, and returned again.

“Larry, you’re all right,” he said.  “Where’s Barger now?”

Trimmer winked.  “That’s his business, and mine.”

“All right—­that’s all right,” agreed the gambler.  “Wouldn’t he take it as a favor if you passed him some money and the word about Van Buren’s hike to Starlight?”

Trimmer got out a new cigar, lit up, and began to smoke as before.

“I was goin’ to pass him some of mine,” he confessed.  “Yours will suit me just as good.”

“Five hundred ought to help him some,” said the gambler.  “Come out to the bar.”

At dark the lumberman left the camp on foot, heading for the mountains.  Bostwick departed in the borrowed car at eight.  The whole town was ablaze with light, and tumultuous with sound.  Glare and disturbance together, however, only faintly symbolized the excitement and fever in the camp.  A thousand men were making final preparations for the rush so soon to come—­the mad stampede upon the reservation ground, barely more than a day removed.