“What of that?” demanded Kells, with his head leaping like the strike of an eagle.

“I’m takin’ it back!”

Kells met the outstretched hand with his own and wrung it.  “Handy, I never knew you to right—­about—­face.  But I’m glad. ...  What’s changed you so quickly?”

“Vigilantes!”

Kells’s animation and eagerness suddenly froze.  “Vigilantes!” he ground out.

“No rumor, Kells, this time.  I’ve sure some news. ...  Come close, all you fellows.  You, Gulden, come an’ listen.  Here’s where we git together closer’n ever.”

Gulden surged forward with his group.  Handy Oliver was surrounded by pale, tight faces, dark-browed and hardeyed.

He gazed at them, preparing them for a startling revelation.  “Men, of all the white-livered traitors as ever was Red Pearce was the worst!” he declared, hoarsely.

No one moved or spoke.

“An’ he was A vigilante!”

A low, strange sound, almost a roar, breathed through the group.

“Listen now an’ don’t interrupt.  We ain’t got a lot of time. ...  So never mind how I happened to find out about Pearce.  It was all accident, an’ jest because I put two an’ two together. ...  Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an’ he planned to sell the Border Legion outright.  There was to be a big stake in it for him.  He held off day after day, only tippin’ off some of the gang.  There’s Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas all caught red-handed at jobs.  Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin’ them jest to prove his claim. ...  Aw!  I’ve got the proofs!  Jest wait.  Listen to me! ...  You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce.  An’ the job he had put up on us was grand.  To-day he was to squeal on the whole gang.  You know how he began on Kells—­an’ how with his oily tongue he asked a guarantee of no gun-play.  But he figgered Kells wrong for once.  He accused Kells’s girl an’ got killed for his pains.  Mebbe it was part of his plan to git the girl himself.  Anyway, he had agreed to betray the Border Legion to-day.  An’ if he hadn’t been killed by this time we’d all be tied up, ready for the noose! ...  Mebbe thet wasn’t a lucky shot of the boss’s.  Men, I was the first to declare myself against Kells, an’ I’m here now to say thet I was a fool.  So you’ve all been fools who’ve bucked against him.  If this ain’t provin’ it, what can!

“But I must hustle with my story. ...  They was havin’ a trial down at the big hall, an’ thet place was sure packed.  No diggin’ gold to-day! ...  Think of what thet means for Alder Creek.  I got inside where I could stand on a barrel an’ see.  Dartt an’ Singleton an’ Frenchy an’ Texas was bein’ tried by a masked court.  A man near me said two of them had been proved guilty.  It didn’t take long to make out a case against Texas an’ Frenchy.  Miners there recognized them an’ identified them.  They was convicted an’