Ford shook his head.  “Not any more just at present, I guess.  He has waited too long.  That fusillade of his will have turned the entire camp out by this time, and the Macs don’t want any inconvenient witnesses.”

“Witnesses?” echoed Adair.  “Then you don’t know—­Say, Stuart; there isn’t a white man in this camp besides us three—­unless you count the MacMorroghs and their commissary garrison as white men.  News of the great gold strike got here about three o’clock, and every laborer within hearing of it shouldered pick and shovel and lined out up the new track for Copah.”

“What!” shouted Ford.  “And these dash-dashed MacMorroghs didn’t try to hold them?”

“I don’t know about that.  I had Mr. Brissac, here, over in the ’01’—­I came across the mountain in North’s car, you know—­dosing him with things out of Doctor Van Bruce’s traveling case, and trying to get him in shape to show me the way to Copah.  After the stampede, which took all the four-legged horses as well as the two-legged asses, I persuaded your man Gallagher to hitch his engine to our car to drag us up to Frisbie’s camp at the front.  I thought Frisbie would probably be in communication with you.  Gallagher’s intentions were good, but about three miles up Horse Creek he ditched the car so thoroughly that we couldn’t inhabit it; so we got out and walked back.”

“All of which brings on more talk,” said Ford gravely.  “From what you say, I gather that the MacMorroghs are still here.  Did any one see you come back?”

“I don’t know.  It was after dark when we straggled in, and we didn’t ring any bells or blow any whistles.”

Ford stood up.

“Does either one of you happen to have anything bigger than a pocket-knife in the way of a weapon?” he asked.

“Why? what are you going to do?” Adair demanded.

“I am going to separate you two from my highly dangerous presence,” said Ford definitely.  “The MacMorroghs’ outfit of a dozen or fifteen cutthroat scoundrels, captained, for the moment, by Eckstein, North’s right-hand man, are doubtless just across the way in the back room of the commissary.  You say the camp is otherwise deserted:  the MacMorroghs don’t know that you are here; and they do know that I am, dead or alive.  Moreover, Mattacheco has doubtless told them by this time that I saw and recognized him.  Wherefore, it’s up to them to see that I never get a chance to go before a grand jury.”

“You sit down on the floor,” said Adair.  He had found a cigarette and was crimping the end of it.  “Have you a fraction of an idea that we are going to allow you to make a Jonah of yourself for us?  Sit down, I say!  Who’s got a gun?”

Brissac had crept to a window and was reconnoitering the deserted camp street and the commissary through a peephole in the drawn shade.  As Adair spoke, he sprang back, tripped Ford and fell with him, crying: 

“Down! both of you!”