“Work it, yep, but what on?” asked Gettysburg.  “We’re as broke as a hatched-out egg.”

“Haven’t you worked on shinbones and heavenly hopes before?” inquired the busy leader of the partnership.  “And that reminds me, Algy, what about you?” he added to the Chinese cook.  “We can’t afford a tippe-bob-royal chef of your dimensions after this.  I guess you’ll have to poison somebody else.”

“What’s mallah you, Van?” Algy demanded aggressively.  “You makee me velly sick.  You get velly lich I cook your glub.  You go bloke, I cook alle same.  Sominagot, I b’long go with you all time.  You no got good luck I never want the money, you savvy?  You go hell—­go anywhere—­I go same place—­that’s all.  You talkee big fool, that velly superstich.”  He looked at Van fiercely to disguise a great alarm, a fear that he might, after all, be dismissed in the break-up impending.

Van shrugged his shoulders.

“Sentenced for life.  All right, Algy, if your cooking kills us off, at least, as the brave young husband remarked, it will all be in the family.”

Algy still looked as fierce as one of his heathen idols.

“You t’ink velly smart,” he said, still concealing his feelings.  “Lats!” and with that he went out to chop some wood.

“Batten me into the pantry!” said Napoleon.  “I’ll bet old Algy’d board the outlaw himself, fer you, Van, squall and all.”

“That horse ain’t human,” Gettysburg exploded anew.  “Van, you can’t ride no such Fourth-of-July procession!”

“Shut up!” murmured Van, with a gesture towards the room where Beth and her maid were dining.  He added aloud:  “The chances are we’ll find he’s a cheap Sunday-school picnic.  Napoleon, you and Cayuse go out and prepare his mind for work.”

“Aye, aye,” said Napoleon rising to go, “but I wish we had some soothin’ syrup, skipper.”

He and the Indian were heard to depart, by Beth, sitting back in her chair.  She was greatly alarmed by all she had heard of vengeful convicts and the vicious horse, and could eat no more for nervous dread.

“That horse has killed his man, and you know it,” said Gettysburg in a whisper that the girl distinctly overhead.  “Boy, boy, let the Injun ride him first.”

“There, there, ease off,” Van answered quietly.  “You keep the women entertained about the mill while Suvy and I are debating.”

He gulped down a last drink of coffee, silenced the miner’s further remonstrances, and departed by way of the kitchen door.

Beth arose hurriedly and hastened forth, intent upon immediate prevention, if possible, of any further ordeals undertaken in behalf of herself.  She was thoroughly frightened.  A prescience of something ominous impending seemed to grip her very heart.  She glanced about, helplessly, unfamiliar with the place.  Van was nowhere in sight.  She started to run around the cabin when Gettysburg appeared in her path.