The glance of the other did not falter, and it maddened Nick.

“I’m talking to you,” said Masters coolly enough.  “What happened between you and Donnegan?”

“What should happen?” asked Lord Nick.

“Maybe all this is a joke,” said Masters bitterly.  He was a square-built man, with a square face and a wrinkled, fleshy forehead.  In intelligence, Nick ranked him first among the men.  And if a new leader were to be chosen there was no doubt as to where the choice of the men would fall.  No doubt that was why Masters put himself forward now, ready to brave the wrath of the chief.  “Maybe we’re fooled,” went on Masters.  “Maybe they ain’t any call for you to fall out with Donnegan?”

“Maybe there’s a call to find out this,” answered Lord Nick.  “Why did you leave the mines?  What are you doing up here?”

The other swallowed so hard that he blinked.

“I left the mines,” he declared through his set teeth, “because I was run off ’em.”

“Ah,” said Lord Nick, for the devil was rising in him, “I always had an idea that you might be yellow, Masters.”

The right hand of Masters swayed toward his gun, hesitated, and then poised idly.

“You heard me talk?” persisted Lord Nick brutally.  “I call you yellow.  Why don’t you draw on me?  I called you yellow, you swine, and I call the rest of you yellow.  You think you have me down?  Why, curse you, if there were thirty of your cut, I’d say the same to you!”

There was a quick shift, the three men faced Lord Nick, but each from a different angle.  And opposing them, he stood superbly indifferent, his arms folded, his feet braced.  His arms were folded, but each hand, for all they knew, might be grasping the butt of a gun hidden away in his clothes.  Once they flashed a glance from face to face; but there was no action.  They were remembering only too well some of the wild deeds of this giant.

“You think I’m through,” went on Lord Nick.  “Maybe I am—­through with you.  You hear me talk?”

One by one, his eyes dared them, and one by one they took up the challenge, struggled, and lowered their glances.  He was still their master and in that mute moment the three admitted it, the Pedlar last of all.

Masters saw fit to fall back on the last remark.

“I’ve swallowed a lot from you, Nick,” he said gravely.

“Maybe there’ll be an end to what we take one of these days.  But now I’ll tell you how yellow I was.  A couple of gents come to me and tell me I’m through at the mine.  I told them they were crazy.  They said old Colonel Macon had sent them down to take charge.  I laughed at ’em.  They went away and came back.  Who with?  With the sheriff.  And he flashed a paper on me.  It was all drawn up clean as a whistle.  Trimmed up with a lot of ‘whereases’ and ‘as hereinbefore mentioned’ and such like things.  But the sheriff just gimme a look and then he tells me what it’s about.  Jack Landis has signed over all the mines to the colonel and the colonel has taken possession.”