The trail grew clearer as he followed it, and he pressed on, a growing rage in his heart, toward the man who had found a good thing and was keeping him out of it, after all that he had suffered. Curiously enough, it was only his own part in yesterday’s adventure that he remembered. Gard’s agency in his rescue and present safety was forgotten or ignored.
Half an hour’s cautious travel, and his ear caught a sound somewhere beyond. He crept on stealthily from one sheltering boulder to another, keeping carefully out of sight, until at last, clambering upon a shelving rock, he peered down upon Gard at work below him.
The cañon was very deep here, its walls towering, bare and grim, hundreds of feet in air. A great mass of piled-up rock nearly bridged the stream, and Broome could plainly see the nature of the vein that had been laid bare. Its promise fairly made him gasp.
He could see, as well, what Gard was doing.
On the face of the rock, close beside the opening where he had worked the claim, he had scratched his location notice, roughly enough, with his inadequate tools, but in letters perfectly legible, defining clearly the boundaries of his claim as he had staked it out.
Having done this, he had gone over the letters again, with charcoal, until they stared in inerasable distinctness from the rock. Now he stood at a little distance, regarding his finished work.
“The damned, sneakin’ swine,” muttered the watcher. “I’ll git even with him; he’s staked the mother-lode.”
He leaned forward eagerly to watch, as Gard moved toward the opening in the rock. What was he going to do next?
He saw him stoop for something, and crept nearer the edge of the rock, forgetful of concealment. Attracted by some slight sound Gard suddenly glanced up and looked the spy full in the face. In an instant Broome had sprung upon him and was clutching at the mattock which the other had just picked up.
“Think yer goin’ ter kill me with that, do yer?” Broome snarled. “I’ll show yer!” He struck at Gard’s eyes, at the same time striving to wrench the tool from him.