Slowly, tremblingly, they went up. Dick’s head, then his shoulders projected through the opening. Strong, rough arms yanked him forward with a force so violent that his jaws snapped. He was lying on the floor now, Sandy beside him. The leering, uncouth faces above were faces without pity. A circle of eyes, like those of hungry wolves, glared down at them. Big, powerful—a tower of brute strength and wickedness—Bear Henderson stormed through the group of men, cursing roundly.
“Truss ’em up! Truss ’em up, you fools. Think we got all day to stand around in. Flick—bring that rope!”
The boys were bound hand and foot, then dragged across the floor and kicked into a corner. Through a smother of dust, Dick perceived that the party of outlaws were preparing to make a descent into the mine. Above the din and confusion, came the hoarse, bellowed orders of Henderson.
One by one, the moose-hide sacks, containing the gold stored in the shaft, were lifted up through the trap. A perfect bedlam of cries and shouts arose. Order was forgotten. Sweating men, their faces distorted with greed and passion, clawed over the precious metal, snarling like beasts.
For a time it looked as if Henderson might lose control of the outlaws. With one exception, every man cursed and fought around the moose-hide sacks, turning deaf ears to their leader. This rebellion against authority transformed Henderson from the brute he was to a glaring-eyed madman. Never before in all his life had Dick seen anything to equal the awful fury of the man, as he leaped here and there through that pack of human wolves and beat them into submission.
In less than five minutes, the man, called Flick, was the only one left of the cowering band who dared to dispute its leader’s authority. Flick had backed away, nursing a cut over his right eye, blood trickling down his face. His cheeks were livid. As Henderson rushed towards him, a knife gleamed and whirred through the air, missing the outlaw by a scant two inches. A short time later Baptiste La Lond, the only one of the party who had shown little interest in the sacks of gold, proceeded to remove the unconscious body of Flick. He accomplished this task by the simple expedient of dragging it out by the heels, yanking it brutally along the floor, through the doorway and thence outside.
Immediately the room became more quiet. With a jerk of his head, Henderson tossed back his mop of yellow hair and wiped his face with the back of one hairy hand.
“Any more o’ yuh devils lookin’ fer trouble—step out!”
No one moved. Sulky faces, many of them battered almost to a pulp, were cast down; shoulders drooped in dejection. Not even the breath of a murmur stirred through their broken ranks.
“Yuh got us licked, Bear, an’ yuh know it,” trembled one of the outlaws. “We didn’t mean no harm jes’ lookin’ at that gold. There ain’t a nugget missin’.”