"Who the hell do you think you are?" "Divide 'em up!" "Give someone else a chanct." Others advanced upon the Indians and shook sheaves of bills under their noses, offering double and treble Brent's price. But the Indians paid no heed to the paper money, and inwardly Brent thanked the lucky star that guided him into exchanging all his money into gold before leaving Seattle.
Despite the fact that he was next to useless as a packer Brent was no weakling. Ignoring the mutterings he led the Indians to his outfit and while they affixed their straps, he faced the crowding men.
"Just stay where you are, boys," he said. "This stuff here is my stuff, and for the time being the ground it's on is my ground."
The man who had sneered at his attempt to pack the flour crowded close and quick as a flash, Brent's left fist caught him square on the point of the chin and he crashed backward among the legs of the others. Brent's voice never changed tone, nor by so much as the flutter of an eye lash did he betray any excitement. "Any man that crosses that line is going to find trouble—and find it damned quick."
"He's bluffin'," cried a thick voice from the rear of the crowd, "Let me up there. I'll show the damn dude!" A huge hard-rock man elbowed his way through the parting crowd, his whiskey-reddened eyes narrowed to slits. Three paces in front of Brent he halted abruptly and stared into the muzzle
of the blue steel gun that had flashed into the engineer's hand.
"Come on," invited Brent, "If I'm bluffing I won't shoot. You're twice as big as I am. I wouldn't stand a show in the world in a rough-and-tumble. But, I'm not bluffing—and there won't be any rough-and-tumble."
For a full half minute the man stared into the unwavering muzzle of the gun.
"You would shoot a man, damn you!" he muttered as he backed slowly away. And every man in the crowd knew that he spoke the truth.
Three of the Indians had put their straps to a hundred pounds apiece and were already strung out on the trail. Brent turned to see Joe Pete regarding him with approval, and as he affixed his straps to a fifty pound pack, the big Indian stooped and swung an extra fifty pounds on top of the hundred already on his back and struck out after the others. At the end of a half-mile Brent was laboring heavily under his load, while Joe Pete had never for an instant slackened his pace. "What's he made of? Don't he ever rest?" thought Brent, as he struggled on. The blood was pounding in his ears, and his laboring lungs were sucking in the air in great gulps. At length his muscles refused to go another step, and he sagged to the ground and lay there sick and dizzy without energy enough left at his command to roll the pack from his shoulders. After what seemed an hour the pack was raised and the