As they neared the Golden Gate Hotel they spied McNamara entering.  It was evident that he had slipped from the rear door of his office and beaten them to the judicial ear.

“I don’t like that,” said Glenister.  “He’s up to something.”

So it appeared, for they were fifteen minutes in gaining access to the magistrate and then found McNamara with him.  Both men were astounded at the change in Stillman’s appearance.  During the last month his weak face had shrunk and altered until vacillation was betrayed in every line, and he had acquired the habit of furtively watching McNamara’s slightest movement.  It seemed that the part he played sat heavily upon him.

The Judge examined the papers perfunctorily, and, although his air was deliberate, his fingers made clumsy work of it.  At last he said: 

“I regret that I am forced to doubt the authenticity of these documents.”

“My Heavens, man!” Wheaton cried.  “They’re certified copies of orders from your superior court.  They grant the appeal that you have denied us and take the case out of your hands altogether.  Yes—­and they order this man to surrender the mine and everything connected with it.  Now, sir, we want you to enforce these orders.”

Stillman glanced at the silent man in the window and replied: 

“You will, of course, proceed regularly and make application in court in the proper way, but I tell you now that I won’t do anything in the matter.”

Wheaton stared at him fixedly until the old man snapped out: 

“You say they are certified copies.  How do I know they are?  The signatures may all be false.  Maybe you signed them yourself.”

The lawyer grew very white at this and stammered until Glenister drew him out of the room.

“Come, come,” he said, “we’ll carry this thing through in open court.  Maybe his nerve will go back on him then.  McNamara has him hypnotized, but he won’t dare refuse to obey the orders of the Circuit Court of Appeals.”

“He won’t, eh?  Well, what do you think he’s doing right now?” said Wheaton.  “I must think.  This is the boldest game I ever played in.  They told me things while I was in ’Frisco which I couldn’t believe, but I guess they’re true.  Judges don’t disobey the orders of their courts of appeal unless there is power back of them.”

They proceeded to the attorney’s office, but had not been there long before Slapjack Simms burst in upon them.

“Hell to pay!” he panted.  “McNamara’s taking your dust out of the bank.”

“What’s that?” they cried.

“I goes into the bank just now for an assay on some quartz samples.  The assayer is busy, and I walk back into his room, and while I’m there in trots McNamara in a hurry.  He don’t see me, as I’m inside the private office, and I overhear him tell them to get his dust out of the vault quick.”

“We’ve got to stop that,” said Glenister.  “If he takes ours, he’ll take the Swedes’, too.  Simms, you run up to the Pioneer Company and tell them about it.  If he gets that gold out of there, nobody knows what’ll become of it.  Come on, Bill.”