"They'd better be," said Lee, aggressively. "We ain't got no room for stealers. Why, I had a hand in makin' the by-laws of this camp myself, 'long with John Gale, and they stip'lates that any person caught robbin' a cache is to be publicly whipped in front of the tradin'-post, then, if it's winter time, he's to be turned loose on the ice barefooted, or, if it's summer, he's to be set adrift on a log with his shirt off."
"Either one would mean certain death," said a stranger. "Frost in winter, mosquitoes in summer!"
"That's all right," another bystander declared. "A man's life depends on his grub up here, and I'd be in favor of enforcing that punishment to the letter if we caught any one thieving."
"All the same, I take no chances," said Stark. "There's too many strangers here. Just to show you how I stand, I've put Runnion on guard over my pile of stuff, and I'll be glad when it's under cover. It isn't the severity of punishment that keeps a man from going wrong, it's the certainty of it."
"Well, he'd sure get it, and get it proper in this camp," declared Lee; and at that moment, as if his words had been a challenge, the flaps of the great tent were thrust aside, and Runnion half led, half threw a man into the open space before the bar.
"Let's have a look at you," he panted. "Well, if it ain't a nigger!"
"What's up?" cried the men, crowding about the prisoner, who crouched, terror-stricken, in the trampled mud and moss, while those playing roulette and "bank" left the tables, followed by the dealers.
"He's a thief," said Runnion, mopping the sweat from his brow. "I caught him after your grub pile, Stark."
"In my cache?"
"Yes. He dropped a crate of hams when I came up on him, and tried to run, but I dropped him." He held his Colt in his right hand, and a trickle of blood from the negro's head showed how he had been felled.