As she was returning alone to her own claim, behold two brawny Circle City miners pulling out her stakes and putting in their own. She flew at them with remarks unprintable.
"You keep your head shut," advised one of the men, a big, evil-looking fellow. "This was our claim first. We was here with Pitcairn yesterday. Somebody's took away our location-posts."
"You take me for a cheechalko?" she screamed, and her blue eyes flashed like smitten steel. She pulled up her sweater and felt in her belt. "You—take your stakes out! Put mine back, unless you want——" A murderous-looking revolver gleamed in her hand.
"Hold on!" said the spokesman hurriedly. "Can't you take a joke?"
"No; this ain't my day for jokin'. You want to put them stakes o' mine back." She stood on guard till it was done. "And now I'd advise you, like a mother, to back-track home. You'll find this climate very tryin' to your health."
They went farther up the slope and marked out a claim on the incline above the bench.
In a few hours the mountain-side was staked to the very top, and still the stream of people struggled out from Rampart to the scene of the new strike. All day long, and all the night, the trail was alive with the coming or the going of the five hundred and odd souls that made up the population. In the town itself the excitement grew rather than waned. Men talked themselves into a fever, others took fire, and the epidemic spread like some obscure nervous disease. Nobody slept, everybody drank and hurrahed, and said it was the greatest night in the history of Minóok. In the Gold Nugget saloon, crowded to suffocation, Pitcairn organized the new mining district, and named it the Idaho Bar. French Charlie and Keith had gone out late in the day. On their return, Keith sold his stake to a woman for twenty-five dollars, and Charlie advertised a half-interest in his for five thousand. Between these two extremes you could hear Idaho Bar quoted at any figure you liked.
Maudie was in towering spirits. She drank several cocktails, and in her knee-length "stampedin' skirt" and her scarlet sweater she danced the most audacious jig even Maudie had ever presented to the Gold Nugget patrons. The miners yelled with delight. One of them caught her up and put her on the counter of the bar, where, no whit at a loss, she curveted and spun among the bottles and the glasses as lightly as a dragonfly dips and whirls along a summer brook. The enthusiasm grew delirious. The men began to throw nuggets at her, and Maudie, never pausing in the dance, caught them on the fly.
Suddenly she saw the Big Chap turn away, and, with his back to her, pretend to read the notice on the wall, written in charcoal on a great sheet of brown wrapping-paper:
"MINÓOK, April 30.