"Who's there?" asked Donnegan.

It was a strange question to ask, for by raising his eyes he could have seen. But Donnegan was staring down at the floor. Even his voice was a weak murmur.

"What a party! What a party he's had!" thought Joe Rix, and after all, there was cause for a celebration. Had not the little man in almost one stroke won the heart of the prettiest girl in The Corner, and also did he not probably have a working share in the richest of the diggings?

"I'm Joe Rix," he said.

"Joe Rix?" murmured Donnegan softly. "Then you're one of Lord Nick's men?"

"I was," said Joe Rix, "sort of attached to him, maybe."

Perhaps this pointed remark won the interest of Donnegan. He raised his eyes, and Joe Rix beheld the most unhappy face he had ever seen. "A bad hangover," he decided, "and that makes it bad for me!"

"Come in," said Donnegan in the same monotonous, lifeless voice.

Big George reluctantly, it seemed, withdrew to one side, and Rix was instantly in the room and drawing out a chair so that he could face Donnegan.

"I was," he proceeded "sort of tied up with Lord Nick. But"--and here he winked broadly--"it ain't much of a secret that Nick ain't altogether a lord any more. Nope. Seems he turned out sort of common, they say."

"What fool," murmured Donnegan, "has told you that? What a.s.s had told you that Lord Nick is a common sort?"

It shocked Joe Rix, but being a diplomat he avoided friction by changing his tactics.

"Between you and me," he said calmly enough, "I took what I heard with a grain of salt. There's something about Nick that ain't common, no matter what they say. Besides, they's some men that n.o.body but a fool would stand up to. It ain't hardly a shame for a man to back down from 'em."

He pointed this remark with a nod to Donnegan.

"I'll give you a bit of free information," said the little man, with his weary eyes lighted a little. "There's no man on the face of the earth who could make Lord Nick back down."

Once more Joe Rix was shocked to the verge of gaping, but again he exercised a power of marvelous self control "About that," he remarked as pointedly as before, "I got my doubts. Because there's some things that any gent with sense will always clear away from. Maybe not one man--but say a bunch of all standin' together."

Donnegan leaned back in his chair and waited. Both of his hands remained drooping from the edge of the table, and the tired eyes drifted slowly across the face of Joe Rix.

It was obviously not the aftereffects of liquor. The astonishing possibility occurred to Joe Rix that this seemed to be a man with a broken spirit and a great sorrow. He blinked that absurdity away.

"Coming to cases," he went on, "there's yourself, Mr. Donnegan. Now, you're the sort of a man that don't sidestep n.o.body. Too proud to do it.

But even you, I guess, would step careful if there was a whole bunch agin' you."

"No doubt," remarked Donnegan.

"I don't mean any ordinary bunch," explained Joe Rix, "but a lot of hard fellows. Gents that handle their guns like they was born with a holster on the hip."

"Fellows like Nick's crowd," suggested Donnegan quietly.

At this thrust the eyes of Joe narrowed a little.

"Yes," he admitted, "I see you get my drift."

"I think so."

"Two hard fighters would give the best man that ever pulled a gun a lot of trouble. Eh?"

"No doubt."

"And three men--they ain't any question, Mr. Donnegan--would get him ready for a hole in the ground."

"I suppose so."

"And four men would make it no fight--jest a plain butchery."

"Yes?"

"Now, I don't mean that Nick's crowd has any hard feeling about you, Mr.

Donnegan."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"I knew you'd be. That's why I've come, all friendly, to talk things over. Suppose you look at it this way--"

"Joe Rix," broke in Donnegan, sighing, "I'm very tired. Won't you cut this short? Tell me in ten words just how you stand."

Joe Rix blinked once more, caught his breath, and fired his volley.

"Short talk is straight talk, mostly," he declared. "This is what Lester and the rest of us want--the mines!"

"Ah?"

"Macon stole 'em. We got 'em back through Landis. Now we've got to get 'em back through the colonel himself. But we can't get at the colonel while you're around."

"In short, you're going to start out to get me? I expected it, but it's kind of you to warn me."

"Wait, wait, wait! Don't rush along to conclusions. We ain't so much in a hurry. We don't want you out of the way. We just want you on our side."

"Shoot me up and then bring me back to life, eh?"

"Mr. Donnegan," said the other, spreading out his hands solemnly on the table, "you ain't doin' us justice. We don't hanker none for trouble with you. Any way it comes, a fight with you means somebody dead besides you. We'd get you. Four to one is too much for any man. But one or two of us might go down. Who would it be? Maybe the Pedlar, maybe Harry Masters, maybe Lester, maybe me! Oh, we know all that. No gunplay if we can keep away from it."

"You've left out the name of Lord Nick," said Donnegan.

Joe Rix winked.

"Seems like you tended to him once and for all when you got him alone in this cabin. Must have thrown a mighty big scare into him. He won't lift a hand agin' you now."

"No?" murmured Donnegan hoa.r.s.ely.

"Not him! But that leaves four of us, and four is plenty, eh?"

"Perhaps."