Gettysburg, too, was on the ground.  He, Bostwick, and a hundred men were madly crowded in together, where two or three were pushing back the throng and yelling to Algy to fight.

Algy was fighting.  He was also spouting most awful Chinese oaths, sufficient to warp an ordinary spine and wither a common person’s limbs.  He kicked and scratched like a badger.  But the miner was an engine of destruction.  He was aggravated to a mood of gory slaughter.  He broke the Chinaman’s arm, almost at once, with some viciously diabolical maneuver and leaped upon him in fury.

In upon this scene of yelling, cursing, and fighting Van rode unannounced.  He saw the crowd increasing rapidly, as saloons, stores, hay-yard, bank, and places of lodging poured out a curious army, mostly men, with a few scattered women among them—­all surging eagerly forward.

Algy, meantime, in a spasm of pain and activity, struggled to his feet from the dust and attempted to make his escape.  Van no more than beheld him that he leaped from his horse and broke his way into the ring.

When he laid his hand on the miner’s collar it appeared as if that individual would be suddenly jerked apart.  Algy went down in collapse.

“Why don’t you pick on a man of your color?”

Van demanded, and he flung the miner headlong to the ground.

A hundred lusty citizens shouted their applause.

Little Napoleon broke his way to the center.  Gettysburg was just behind him.  Van was about to kneel on the ground and lift his prostrate cook when someone bawled out a warning.

He wheeled instantly.  The angered miner, up, with a gun in hand, was lurching in closer to shoot.  He got no chance, even to level the weapon.  Van was upon him like a panther.  The gun went up and was fired in the air, and then was hurled down under foot.

Two things happened then together.  The sheriff arrived to arrest the drunken miner, and a woman pushed her way through the press.

“Van!” she cried.  “Van—­oh, Van!”

He was busy assisting his partners to escort poor Algy away.  He noted the woman as she parted the crowd.  He was barely in time to fend her off from flinging herself in his arms.

“Oh, Van!” she repeated wildly.  “I thought you was goin’ to git it sure!”

“Don’t bother me, Queenie,” he answered, annoyed, and adding to Gettysburg, “Take him to Charlie’s,” he turned at once to his broncho, mounted actively, and began to round up the scattered animals brought into camp by his partners.

He had barely ridden clear of the crowd when his glance was caught by a figure off to the left.

It was Beth.  She was standing on a packing case, where the surging disorder had sent her.  She had seen it all, the fight, his arrival, and the woman who would have clasped him in her arms.

Her face was flushed.  She avoided his gaze and turned to descend to the walk.  Then Bostwick, in his convict suit, stepped actively forward to meet her.