He turned away from his partner, facing once again toward the “Independence.”  Then he readjusted the tubes, and passed them over to his silent companion.

“Just see what you make out o’ it, Mr. Winston; ye ’re some younger, an’ yer eyes ought ter be a heap better ’n mine.”

The young engineer, his heart already beginning to throb with the excitement of an unaccustomed position of danger, ran the lenses carefully back and forth from the half-concealed bunk-house to the nearer ore-dump, searching for every sign of life.  Whatever emotion swayed him, there was not the slightest tremor to the steady hands supporting the levelled tubes.

“They have certainly got together a considerable number of men,” he reported, the glass still at his eyes.  “Roughs the most of them look to be, from their clothes.  The largest number are grouped in between the shaft-house and the dump, but there must be a dozen or fifteen down below at the edge of those cedars.  Farnham is at the shaft-house—­no, he and another fellow have just started down the dump, walking this way.  Now they have gone into the cedars, and are coming straight through.  What’s up, do you suppose—­negotiations?”

“I ’m damned if I know,” returned the old miner, staring blankly.  “This whole thing kinder jiggers me.  Maybe he thinks he kin skeer us out by a good brand o’ talk.  He ‘s a bit o’ a bluffer, that Farnham.”

The two watchers waited in breathless expectancy, leaning on their loaded Winchesters, their eyes eagerly fastened on the concealing cedars.  Behind where they remained in the open, yet within easy rifle-shot, the heads of Brown and Old Mike rose cautiously above the rock rampart of their natural fort.  Suddenly two men, walking abreast, emerged from out the shadow of the wood, and came straight toward them across the open ridge of rocks.  They advanced carelessly, making no effort to pick their path, and in apparently utter indifference to any possible peril.  The one was Farnham, his slender form erect, his shoulders squared, his hat pushed jauntily back so as to reveal fully the smoothly shaven face.  The other bent slightly forward as he walked, his wide brim drawn low over his eyes, leaving little visible except the point of a closely trimmed beard.  He was heavily built, and a “45” dangled conspicuously at his hip.  If Farnham bore arms they were concealed beneath the skirt of his coat.  Watching them approach, Winston’s eyes became threatening, his hands involuntarily clinching, but Hicks remained motionless, his lean jaws continuously munching on the tobacco in his cheek.

“Who the hell is that with him?” he questioned, wonderingly.  “Do you know the feller?”

Winston shook his head, his own steady gaze riveted upon Farnham.  Deliberately the two climbed the low ore-dump side by side, and came forth on top into the full glare of the sun.  Hicks’s Winchester sank to a level, his wicked old eye peering along the polished barrel.