"I seen, didn't I?" clucked the old man, tapping nervously on the bare floor with his peeled willow staff. "It was gold! Joe's stuck his pick into the mother lode! Ain't I always told you young fools...."
Gallup, patient no longer, caught him by the thin old arm and jerked him to the door, thrusting him out and unheeding the querulous protests. Then he swung about upon the younger man.
"On your way, Tim," he commanded.
There was that in his voice which discouraged argument. For Gallup, in the full power of his strength, a big man and heavy and hard, was suddenly flaming with anger and the two great fists were lifting from his sides. Tim, muttering, hastened after old Parker; behind him the oak door was slammed and the bolt shot into its socket. He broke into a run, seeking Barny McCuin and the others.
Gallup strode straight back to Mexicali Joe, clamping a ponderous hand upon the shoulder which sought futilely to jerk free.
"Spit it out, Joe," he ordered. "Where'd that come from?"
"You let me go! I ain't workin' for you. You ain't my boss. What I got, she's mine! Now I goin' home."
Gallup, still holding him with one hand, probed at him with his eyes, seeking to fathom what powers of determination and stubbornness lay within a mongrel soul. Joe looked frightened; there were beads of sweat on his forehead, stealing downward from under his black matted hair. But there was in his look the glint of desperate defiance.... Gallup called softly:
"Hey, Ricky; come here."
His combination cook and chore man returned through the inner door with an alacrity which must have told his employer that he had never stirred a step from the threshold. He, like the others, was on fire with suddenly stimulated greed.