One or two remained with the constable.
"When was it done?" one asked Leary.
"How should I know?" he answered. "I reckon I was sleeping when I wakened here all tied up, and there were the four of them parcelling out the gold and talking among themselves quiet and easy. I let out a yell, and one of them—the stranger—came over and jammed something into my mouth—and there I was till you chaps came."
At the Rest the men were raging and storming, for they had now discovered that Gleeson was gone; while round the proprietor of the Rest, Marmot, Smart, and Cullen were gathered—the disappearance of the gold entirely altered the character of the miners in their eyes. Palmer Billy, his face working with passion, strode up and down.
"The sharks! And we didn't kill one of them when we had him," he was yelling in a voice that sounded even above the babel.
Marmot, shrewdly scenting trouble if the miners were refused supplies at the present juncture—and they would be refused if they asked now that their money was gone—began to urge the men to start in chase of the thieves. Fortunately his words caught Palmer Billy's ears, and at once the stentorian voice shouted—
"Come on, boys, we'll run 'em down and hang 'em. They can't be far away."
Most of the men saw red in the fury of the moment. With their winnings gone, their festivity cut short, their credit exhausted, and their self-control, never very strong, further weakened by the frolic of the night before, there would have been a short shrift for any of the four men had they been captured. But four mounted men, with their wits about them, and with several hours' start, were more than a match for a mob of men without organization, or even a knowledge as to the direction in which the others had gone. A few moments' thought would have shown that to them, only they had neither the time nor the inclination for thought. They were off, anywhere and everywhere, as soon as they could get their swags together; and Marmot's fellow-townsmen lavished praise upon him for his astuteness, as they saw the last of the angry crowd depart.
Some few stayed. Tony stopped Peters, and Palmer Billy stayed too, arguing vigorously against their tardiness in starting, till he calmed down and understood.
"This makes six times I've been bluffed by sharks, and I've only half killed one," he said savagely. "We'll strike it again before we've done, boys, and if a shark gets at me then—well, he can have it, that's all."