A dozen men had seen Joe's gold. Before midnight no less than twenty tongues had discussed the one matter of moment. Men cautioned other men against letting too many people know; but such was the electric mood swaying them that early the next morning the news began trickling forth through the country surrounding Big Pine. By late afternoon word had penetrated far up into the mountains and, following the stage road, had gone fifty miles toward the distant railroad. And that same day it leaked out that Mexicali Joe, who had so strangely disappeared, had not fled at all but all the time had been in Big Pine. He had been arrested by Sheriff Taggart and thrown into the town jail, charged with disturbing the peace.
Taggart himself had nothing to say. He kept Joe shut up alone and let no one see him.
CHAPTER II
A normal census gave Big Pine a population of about one hundred and twenty inhabitants, and the most normal thing which any census does is to exaggerate. But within forty-eight hours after the tearing of Mexicali Joe's coat pocket between nine and twelve hundred people, variously estimated, poured into the settlement. Wood-choppers and timber jacks and lone prospectors hurried down from the mountains; storekeepers and ranchmen came up from far below Rocky Bend and Red Oak; that strange medley of humanity which always rushes first in the wake of gold news filled Big Pine to overflowing, men and even women; all straining to one purpose back of which lay many motives. Spring was verging on summer; nights were cold, but the air was dry; they found rooms where they could, and when they could not they builded great camp-fires and found what comfort they might in the edges of the pine groves. Gallup doubled his prices and then doubled them again, and still his house was full. There were half a dozen empty houses, ancient disreputable shacks long in disuse; these found usurping tenants the first day. There were some few who had had forethought and took the time to bring tents. Almost in an hour a quiet, sleepy little mountain town was metamorphosed into a noisy, clamorous and sleepless mining camp.
Among the first to arrive was a young man named Deveril. Very tall and good-looking and gay and slender he was, making himself look taller by the boots he wore and the way he pinched his soft hat into a peak. Babe Deveril he was called by those who knew him, saving one only, who called him Baby Devil and jeered at him with a pair of mocking eyes.
Deveril had been in Big Pine before, though not for some years. Also he had seen his share of mining camps through Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada, and knew something of congested conditions and the hardships which accompanied the short-sighted. Before his arrival was ten minutes old, he had cast about him for a shelter. Already the Gallup House was full, but not yet had the disused, tumbled-down shacks been thought of. He found a dilapidated building which once, long ago, had been a log cabin; it stood in the pines set well back from the place of Mexicali Joe; it had a fireplace. Deveril preempted it coolly, neither knowing nor caring who the owner might be; he brought his slim bed-roll here, followed it up with frying-pan, bacon, and coffee-pot and considered himself established. Further, being just now in funds and always yielding to the more fastidious impulses at moments when fortune was kind, he secured a serving-maid. Maria, the dusky daughter of Mexicali Joe, consented gladly to come in and cook and make the bed and keep things tidy. He gave her a couple of silver dollars and made her a bow to bind the bargain, tossing in for fair measure a flashing smile which left the half-breed girl thrilling and sighing. Thereafter, bending his mind to the main issue, he sought to find out for himself how much of fact underlay the glittering rumors which had been pouring forth from Big Pine like rays from the sun.
This heterogeneous mass of humanity occupying Big Pine had broken up into numerous small groups, after the fashion of men who are so prone to break large units down into smaller ones. Cupidity, jealousy, and suspicion flaunted their banners on all hands; men watched one another like so many thieves. The old inhabitants went about bristling, resenting the presence of these outsiders who were rushing in to steal the golden secret. Among themselves they were divided into two antagonistic factions; there was the Gallup crowd, including Gallup and Sheriff Taggart and the men who did their bidding; and there were those who had heard Barny McCuin's tale and who were out to block the game of Gallup and Taggart, or know the reason why.
Babe Deveril, sauntering here and there, identified himself with no group; it was his preference always to hunt singly. But he went everywhere, his mind and ears and eyes co-ordinating in the work he set them. He listened to rumors and sifted them and went on to newer and always contradictory rumors. It was said that Mexicali Joe had been killed, his body found in a ravine three miles from town; that Gallup had spirited him off last night into the mountains; that Joe had made his strike in the old and long-deserted mining camp of Timkin's Bar; that his specimens had come from Lost Woman's Gulch; that Joe had never stirred a mile from Big Pine in his latter prospecting, and that, therefore, at any moment any one of the thousand gold seekers might stumble upon his prospect hole. It was said that Joe's pay-dirt would run twenty dollars to the ton, and while this was being advanced as though by one who knew all about it, another man was saying that it would run a thousand dollars. Deveril, when he had heard a score of empty though colorful tales, turned at last to the Gallup House; Gallup and Taggart knew all that was to be known, and, although they had the trick of the shut mouth and steady eye, there was always the chance of a sign to be read by the watchful.