“So that’s the game, eh?  It’s man to man from now on.  Very well, Glenister, I’ll have your life for that, and then—­you’ll pay, Miss Helen.”  He considered carefully.  A plot for a plot.  If he could not swap intrigue with these miners and beat them badly, he deserved to lose.  Now that the girl gave herself to their cause he would use her again and see how well she answered.  Public opinion would not stand too great a strain, and, although he had acted within his rights last night, he dared not go much further.  Diplomacy, therefore, must serve.  He must force his enemies beyond the law and into his trap.  She had passed the word once; she would do so again.

He hurried to Stillman’s house and stormed into the presence of the Judge.  He told the story so artfully that the Judge’s astonished unbelief yielded to rage and cowardice, and he sent for his niece.  She came down, white and silent, having heard the loud voices.  The old man berated her with shrewish fury, while McNamara stood silent.  The girl listened with entire self-control until her uncle made a reference to Glenister that she found intolerable.

“Hush!  I will not listen!” she cried, passionately.  “I warned him because you would have sacrificed him after he had saved our lives.  That is all.  He is an honest man, and I am grateful to him.  That is the only foundation for your insult.”

McNamara, with apparent candor, broke in: 

“You thought you were doing right, of course, but your action will have terrible consequences.  Now we’ll have riot, bloodshed, and Heaven knows what.  It was to save all this that I wanted to break up their organization.  A week’s imprisonment would have done it, but now they’re armed and belligerent and we’ll have a battle to-night.”

“No, no!” she cried.  “There mustn’t be any violence.”

“There is no use trying to check them.  They are rushing to their own destruction.  I have learned that they plan to attack the Midas to-night, and I’ll have fifty soldiers waiting for them there.  It is a shame, for they are decent fellows, blinded by ignorance and misled by that young miner.  This will be the blackest night the North has ever seen.”

With this McNamara left the house and went in search of Voorhees, remarking to himself:  “Now, Miss Helen—­send your warning—­the sooner the better.  If I know those Vigilantes, it will set them crazy, and yet not crazy enough to attack the Midas.  They will strike for me, and when they hit my poor, unguarded office, they’ll think hell has moved North.”

“Mr. Marshal,” said he to his tool, “I want you to gather forty men quietly and to arm them with Winchesters.  They must be fellows who won’t faint at blood—­you know the kind.  Assemble them at my office after dark, one at a time, by the back way.  It must be done with absolute secrecy.  Now, see if you can do this one thing and not get balled up.  If you fail, I’ll make you answer to me.”