'I am with you,' Bluff Harry agreed. 'If they came to open fighting I would take a hand to the last, but this secret business don't suit me. I reckon the game is played out here, and we had better vamoose the ranch before the worst comes of it.'
The others were of the same opinion. The little tents were pulled down and their belongings made up into bundles, and before noon each man shouldered his kit and moved quietly off.
CHAPTER XXII
The evening after the departure of the men who had terrorised the camp, a general meeting was held and the proceedings of Judge Lynch were endorsed by a unanimous vote. It was resolved that the camp should be kept free from professional gamblers and hard characters, and Judge Lynch was requested to give warning to any such men as might come, to clear off without delay. Except those absolutely concerned in the affair of the night before, none in camp knew who were the men who had carried it out. It was an understood thing in the mining camps that the identity of Judge Lynch and his band should not be inquired into or even guessed at. Had their identity been established, it would have been unsafe for any of them to have gone beyond the limits of their camp, and the risk would have been so great that it would have been difficult to get men to act, had they not known that the most absolute secrecy would be maintained.
Some of the miners who were in the habit of playing high grumbled somewhat at the expulsion of Mason, who had not himself been concerned in any of the shooting affrays. Two or three of them packed up their kits and left the camp on the day following the expulsion of the gambler and his associates, but the general result was that the saloon was better attended than ever. There was still a good deal of play going on, for cards formed one of the few amusements of the miners, but as long as they played against each other, the stakes were comparatively moderate, and men were pretty sure that if they lost they, at least, lost fairly.
The intimacy between Ned Hampton and the girl who went by the name of Linda increased. She had given him a bright nod the first time he went into the saloon after the revolution.
'You see there was nothing to be nervous about,' he said; 'the matter was very easily carried out.'
'It is a comfort to know that they are all gone. I hope we shall have peace and quiet now. I hope no one knows that you had anything to do with it.'
'No; it is known only to those who took part in it, and no one but yourself knows that I was one of them.'