The door crashed in; there was a fusillade of shots, the spits of fire cleaving the dusk, and throwing the figures of the men into sudden bold relief.  The log wielders sprang aside, and the others leaped forward, yelling wildly and plunging in through the broken doorway.  An instant later three muffled reports rang out from the interior—­one deep and booming, the others sharper, more resonant—­and the invaders tumbled backward into the open, seeking shelter.  Westcott was erect, Brennan on hands and knees.

“Damn me!” ejaculated the latter, his excitement conquering restraint.  “Whoever they are, Jim, they’re givin’ ol’ Mendez his belly full.  Did yer hear them shots?  There’s sure two of ’em in thar—­one’s got a shotgun an’ the other a revolver.  I’ll bet yer they punctuated some o’ those lads.  Lord!  They come out like rats.”

Westcott’s teeth gripped.

“I’m going down,” he said grimly, “if I have to go alone.”

Brennan scrambled to his feet.

“Just a second, Jim, an’ I’m with yer.  Moore, get up yere.  Now, what do yer say?  Can we count you in on this shindig?”

“Go down thar with yer?”

“Sure!  Y’re a man, ain’t yer?  If yer say y’re game, I’ll play square—­otherwise we’ll see to your case afore we start.  I don’t leave yer up yere to play no tricks—­now which is it?”

Moore stared over the edge into the black depths.

“Yer want me to show you the way?”

“Yer say you’ve made the trip wunst.  If yer have, yer kin do it again.  I’m askin’ yer fer the last time.”

The boy shivered, but his jaw set.

“I don’t give a damn fer you, Dan Brennan,” he returned half angrily, “but I reckon that might be the girl down thar, an’ I’ll risk it fer her.”

“You’ll go then?”

“Sure; didn’t I just tell you so?”

Brennan wheeled about.

“Give him his gun, Jim, and the belt,” he commanded briefly.  “I don’t send no man into a fracas like this unless he’s heeled.  Leave yer coats here, an’ take it slow.  Both of yer ready?”

Not until his dying day will Westcott ever forget the moment he hung dangling over the edge of that pit, following Moore who had disappeared, and felt gingerly in the darkness for the narrow rock ledge below.  The young miner possessed imagination, and could not drive from memory the mental picture of those depths beneath; the horror was like a nightmare, and yet the one dominant thought was not of an awful death, of falling headlong, to be crushed shapeless hundreds of feet below.  This dread was there, an intense agony at first, but beyond it arose the more important thought of what would become of her if he failed to attain the bottom of that cliff alive.  Yet this was the very thing which steadied him, and brought back his courage.