The individual who had done all the talking leaped forward toward him, and dodging a hastily aimed blow, seized him about the waist and threw him neatly to the ground.  Bennington struggled furiously and silently.  The other had great difficulty in holding him down.

“Come here, some of you fellows,” he cried, panting and laughing a little.  “Tie his hands, for the love of Heaven.”

In another moment the Easterner, his arms securely pinioned, stood as before.  He was breathing hard and the short struggle had heated his blood through and through.  Bunker Hill had waked up.  He set his teeth, resolving that they should not get another word out of him.

The timekeeper raised one hand warningly.  Over his shoulder Bennington dimly saw a tall muscular figure, tense with the expectation of effort, lean forward to the slack of the lariat.  He stared back to the front.

The leader raised his pistol to give the signal.  Bennington shut his eyes.  Then ensued a pause and a murmuring of low voices.  Bennington looked, and, to his surprise, perceived Lawton’s girl in earnest expostulation with the leader of the band.  As he listened their voices rose, so he caught snatches of their talk.

“Confound it all!” objected the man in exasperated tones, “you don’t play fair.  That wasn’t the agreement at all.”

“Agreement or no agreement, this thing’s gone far enough,” she rejoined sharply.  “I’ve watched the whole performance, and I’ve been expecting for the last ten minutes you’d have sense enough to quit.”

The voices died to a murmuring.  Once the girl stamped her foot, and once the man spread his hands out in deprecation.  The maskers grouped about in silent enjoyment of the scene.  At last the discussion terminated.

“It’s all up, boys,” cried the man savagely, tearing off his mask.  To Bennington’s vast surprise, the features of Jim Fay were discovered.  He approached and began sullenly to undo the young man’s pinioned arms.  The others rolled up their masks and put them in their pockets.  They laughed to each other consumedly.  The tall man approached, rubbing his jaw.

“You hits hard, sonny,” said he, “and you don’t go down in yore boots[A] a little bit.”

The group began to break up and move down the gulch, most of the men shouting out a good-natured word or so of farewell.  Bennington, recovering from his daze at the rapid passage of these events, stepped forward to where Fay and the girl had resumed their discussion.  He saw that the young miner had recovered his habitual tone of raillery, and that the girl was now looking up at him with eyes full of deprecation.

“Miss Lawton,” said Bennington with formality, “I hope you will allow me, after your great kindness, to see that you get down the gulch safely.”

Fay cut in before the girl could reply.

“Don’t bother about that, de Laney,” said he, in a most cavalier fashion.  “I’ll see to it.”