And then—for the fifth or sixth time Larry had dodged back from his post at Dick’s call, and all three of them had their heads together over the most beautiful of all the specimens that had yet been dug out of the heap of shattered rock. Suddenly the waning daylight sifting in through the narrow crevice entrance was cut off, and a raucous voice bellowed:
“Say! What the blazes are youse fellows doin’ in our mine, I’d like to know? Climb down out o’ this, the bunch o’ yuh, afore I drill yuh so full o’ holes that your own mothers won’t know yuh!”
CHAPTER XI
FINDERS KEEPERS
At the summons for which they had been looking—and hadn’t looked judiciously enough—the three Golden Spiders, kneeling beside the partly sorted pile of ore and broken stone, were taken at a tremendous disadvantage. Larry’s rifle was the only one within reach, and this had been put down while he was handling the piece of rich ore that Dick had thrust at him.
The intruder, a heavily built man with a swarthy face, ragged black mustaches and a beard that looked as if it might be a month past its last shave, had apparently come well prepared to enforce the notice to quit. He carried a rifle in the crook of his arm, and there was a formidable-looking pistol sagging in its holster on his right hip.
Dick was the first to get upon his feet, and what he said was no measure at all of the scare that was gripping him inside.
“You say this is your mine? I g-guess you’ll have to prove that before you can run us off,” he blurted out.
“Prove nothin’!” retorted the invader with an ugly rasp in his voice. “Me and my pardners was pardners with old Jim Brock when he worked the ’sessment on this here claim. You fellers pack up and git out whilst yuh can do it with whole skins. Git a move, I say!”
Up to this point little Purdick was the only one who was doing any moving. Being behind Dick and Larry, and also having the pile of shot-down rock for partial concealment, he was trying by slow inchings to get hold of Larry’s gun. He knew it would probably be quick suicide for Larry to turn around and try to pick it up, but he thought that he—Purdick—might be able to get it if Dick would only go on arguing with the big hold-up and so gain a little time. Dick didn’t disappoint him. Arguing was the thing Dickie Maxwell did best.