The camels were certainly travelling at an unusually rapid rate; heavily laden as they were, they were actually ambling over the sand, and old Dead Broke Dan was running energetically alongside, plying his long whip with a will.
"I can't make it out," said Mackay. "Dead Broke knows well enough that it's dangerous to rush those brutes in that fashion. There must be something wrong."
Something apparently was wrong, for when the great hulking beasts staggered into camp, their flanks were heaving convulsively, and their mouths were flecked with foam. Their driver, too, seemed in the last stage of collapse.
"There's a rush comin', mates," he panted. "Macguire's gang followed me out from Kalgoorlie. I tried to shake them off an' doubled back on my own tracks, but they've got horses and buggies, an' I couldn't lose them, no matter how I dodged. They camped less'n a mile from me last night; but I didn't unload the camels, an' scooted about one o'clock in the morning so as to get in ahead to tell you."
"We couldn't have kept it quiet much longer anyhow, boys," said Nuggety Dick. "An' I don't think we'd have minded a decent crowd comin' to the flat, but Macguire's a holy terror, and his gang are a tough party to handle."
"There's one howlin' satisfaction, mates," laughed Emu Bill. "They'll get nothin' but that miserable miradgy clay outside our pegs. I kin just fancy I hear Macguire's words when he sees his gold vanish." He grinned delightedly at the thought.
Mackay did not say much, he knew that a rush was inevitable, but Macguire was not exactly the kind of man he would care to have as a near neighbour. He was a noted bully, card-sharper, and mine-jumper, though he ostensibly kept an hotel in the township where men of a similar fraternity were wont to congregate.
"How many are in the crowd, Dead Broke?" he asked.
"'Bout a dozen, I calc'late."
"And we are only eight," mused Mackay.