“It looks like an end of things for Greek Conniston,” he muttered, dully.

His watchful eyes saw a little commotion upon the fringe of the knot of men who had moved a little toward the tent.  He saw one of the men step out quickly and raise a big revolver.  The man, as he lifted the revolver, fired, not seeming to aim.  The bullet struck one of the front wheels of Conniston’s wagon.  Almost at the same second Conniston fired.  Fired and missed, and fired again.  With the second report came a shrill cry from the man with the revolver, and Conniston saw him stagger, drop his gun, wheel half around, and fall.  And where he fell he lay, writhing and calling out to his fellows.

For a moment the others hung back, hesitating.  The man upon the ground lifted himself upon an elbow, glared at Conniston, and began to crawl slowly back toward the tent.  Obviously, he had been struck in the thigh or side.  The man who had shot him, and who was new to this sort of work, thanked God that he had not killed the fellow outright.

The next moment he forgot him entirely.  Ben and Mundy were a pace or two in front of their men, who from force of habit had begun to flock toward their daily leaders.  They were talking earnestly, their voices lowered so that the pressing forms about them had to crane their necks to listen.

Still the whisky-barrel stood scarcely more than touched.  Conniston, seeing that as long as it stood there he could hope to do nothing toward a restoration of order, emptied the magazine of his rifle into it.  He saw the splinters fly, saw that the bullets had torn great holes into the hard wood, heard the snapping of oaths from those of the men who had drunk only enough to arouse their thirst, and began slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine.

“There’ll be precious little of that stuff left, anyway,” he grunted, with grim satisfaction.

He had expected a charge, but it did not come.  Ben and Mundy had in all evidence taken command now.  Their backs were to him as they issued short orders which he could not catch.  But their purport was plain enough.  He took his revolver from its holster and laid it in front of him upon a board across the top of one of the barrels.

Silently the men were falling back.  And as they retreated they spread out into a great semicircle, wider and wider.  He saw that fifty, perhaps seventy-five, of them had revolvers in their hands.  And he saw that these men stood in advance of their companions.  In another five minutes, in less than five minutes, the semicircle would be a circle of which he would be the center.  Then they would close in on him, and then—­

There must be no then.  That was the one thing clear.  He might shoot down a dozen of them, but they would get him in the end.  At one end of the slowly widening arc was Ben the Englishman.  At the other was Mundy.

“Ben!” shouted Conniston, sharply.  “You’ve got to stop that!  Mundy, stop where you are!  I don’t want to kill you fellows, but I’ll do it if you keep on!”