“Where is he, then?”

“Way out South, on a survey.  You’d better take that car of yours, with a couple of men I’ll send along, and fetch him back mighty pronto.  We can’t let a deal like this look raw.  The sooner he runs that reservation line the better things will appear.”

Bostwick, too, had risen.

“Will your men know where to find him?”

“If he’s still on the map,” said the gambler.  “You leave that to me.  Better go see about your car to-night.  I’ll hustle your men and your outfit.  See you again if anything turns up important.  Meantime, is your money in the bank?”

“It’s in the bank.”

“Right,” said McCoppet.  “Good-night.”

CHAPTER XXIII

BETH’S DESPERATION

The following day in Goldite was one of occurrences, all more or less intimately connected with the affairs of Van and Beth.

Bostwick succeeded in making an early start to the southward in his car.  McCoppet had provided not only a couple of men as guides to the field where Lawrence was working, but also a tent, provisions, and blankets, should occasion arise for their use.

Beth was informed by her fiance that word had arrived from her brother, to whom Searle said he meant to go.  The business of buying Glenmore’s mine, he said, required unexpected dispatch.  Perhaps both he and Glen might return by the end of the week.

By that morning’s train the body of Culver was shipped away—­and the camp began to forget him.  The sheriff was after Cayuse.

Early in the afternoon the body of the girl who had never been known in Goldite by any name save that of Queenie, was buried on a hillside, already called into requisition as a final resting place for such as succumbed in the mining-camp, too far from friends, or too far lost, to be carried to the world outside the mountains.  Half a dozen women attended the somewhat meager rites.  There was one mourner only—­the man who had run to summon Van, and who later had waited by the door.

At four o’clock the Goldite News appeared upon the streets.  It contained much original matter—­or so at least it claimed.  The account of the murder of Culver, the death of Queenie, and the threatened lynching of Van Buren made a highly sensational story.  It was given the prominent place, for the editor was proud to have made it so full in a time that he deemed rather short.  On a second page was a tale less tragic.

It was, according to one of its many sub-headings, “A Humorous Outcrop concerning two Maids and a Man.”  It related, with many gay sallies of “wit,” how Van had piloted Mr. J. Searle Bostwick into the hands of the convicts, recently escaped, packed off his charges, Miss Beth Kent and her maid, and brought them to Goldite by way of the Monte Cristo mine, in time to behold the discomfited entrance of the said J. Searle Bostwick in prisoner’s attire.  Mr. Bostwick was described as having been “on his ear” towards Van Buren ever since.