Over scrambled Charley, to where Billy was crouching and peering at a weathered board set up in a shallow hollow. Billy's voice rang triumphantly.
"'Golden West,' it says. 'Golden West Mine.' And——'I lay claim to as much of this lode running east and west as is allowed by miners' law. Tom Jones. August 22, 1848.'"
"Golden West!" exclaimed Charley, crashing and sliding to Billy's side. "Hurrah! That's the mine we've been looking for, Billy! It's our mine. It's the one——"
"That's where you're mistaken, bub," interrupted a new voice, speaking cold and distinctly. "Now you pile out of there, and git! Don't come back again, either."
Looking up, startled (as did Billy likewise), Charley faced the long-nosed man and his two companions gazing in upon them, over the brushy rim of the hollow and the muzzles of three guns.
XXI
MINERS' JUSTICE
"No talk, now," continued the long-nosed man, with a hard smile slightly curving his thin black moustache. "Drop that rifle, you other kid. Back up the side of that hollow, both of you, and scoot. You're in the wrong pew. This happens to be our claim. See?"
Billy was so surprised and bewildered at the sudden attack that he simply couldn't say a word. He only looked, with mouth open, at Charley; and then at the men. He and Charley slowly backed away, up the other slope of the hollow. Charley saw that the three men were breathing hard, as if they had just arrived, in a hurry. He was so mad that he, too, scarcely could speak.