"Oh, we're all liable to trip!" Maclane helped him up. "Who'll be next?"
"Count me in, Dominie!" An elderly man, gaunt and ill-clad, gold-pan under his arm, climbed the banks of the creek and entered the tent.
"Old Lucky's down on his luck, but he gen'lly knows whar the gold is!" A boyish-looking prospector, who had been wanting an excuse, joined him.
Several followed the example, till at last only Nick and his bodyguard remained outside. When a rousing chorus of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," pealed forth from the tent, Mops chuckled joyously. "Look out fer fireworks! Nick's waking!"
After preliminary grunts and stretchings the Bully sat up in his ugliest mood. "Wot th' hell—— Is this Jedgment Day?"
"Naw! Only some blasted holy windmill come for to save our souls," Bill informed him.
"The cursed stiff!" Nick sprang toward the tent. "I'll teach him ter meddle with my anatomy!" He cocked his pistol. "One, two——"
"Bully Nick! He never misses the bull's-eye!" shouted his delighted followers.
At this juncture a fresh-skinned young giant in blouse and overalls, who had been chopping kindlings by Gumboot Annie's woodpile, dropped his hatchet and strolled up with a casual air wholly at variance with the keen, hawk-like glance of his gray-blue eyes. As Nick told off the last minutes of Parson Maclane's earthly span, the newcomer pinioned him in a grasp of iron from behind. "Not this time, Bully Nick!"
"Eh? Who the mischief are ye to stop me?" is the polite, free rendering of Nick's impolite free speech. "I don't think I hev the pleasure of your acquaintance, my lad!"