"Mr. McBain!" called the captain and as Rimrock clutched at his pistol he found a gun thrust against his stomach.
"You make a crooked move," warned the captain sharply, "and——"
He stopped for up from the mouth of the Old Juan shaft came the head of Andrew McBain.
"Ah, hiding in a hole," spoke up Rimrock sneeringly, as McBain opened his mouth to talk. "I'd like to work for a man like you. Say, boys, take on with me—I'll double your money; and what's more I'll stand up for my rights!" He looked around at the line of gun-fighters, but their set lips did not answer his smile. Only in their eyes, those subtle mirrors of the mind, did he read the passing reflex of their scorn. "You're scared, you coward," went on Rimrock scathingly as McBain looked warily about. "Come out, if you're a man, and prove your title, or by grab, I'll come in there and get you!"
He stopped with a grunt for the hard-eyed captain had jabbed him with the muzzle of his gun.
"None of that," he said, but Rimrock took no notice—his eyes were fixed on McBain.
He came out of the hole with a waspish swiftness, though there was a wild, frightened look in his eyes; and as he advanced towards the barricade he drew out a bulldog pistol and held it awkwardly in his hand.
"Mr. Jones," he began in his harsh lawyer's voice, "don't think for a moment you can bluff me. These men have their orders and at the first show of violence I have told them to shoot you dead. Now regarding this claim, formerly known as the Old Juan, you have no legal right to the same. In the first place, Juan Soto, whom you hired to locate it, is not an American citizen and therefore his claim is void. In the second place the transfer for the nominal sum of ten dollars proves collusion to perpetrate a fraud. And in the third place——"
"You're a liar!" broke in Rimrock, his breast heaving with anger, "he's as much a citizen as you are. He's been registered in Gunsight for twenty years and his vote has never been challenged."
"Juan Bautista Soto," returned McBain defiantly, "was born in Caborca, Sonora, on the twenty-fourth day of June, eighteen sixty. I have a copy of the records of the parish church to prove he is Mexican-born. And in the third place——"