Bill Brudenell was sitting on a rough log, within a yard or two. He, too, was gazing out into the approaching night while he smoked on in meditative silence. His keen face and usually twinkling eyes were serious. He had small enough claims behind him. There was no woman in his life to hold his intimate regard. The present was his, and the future. The future had his life's work of healing in it. The present held his friend, beside whom he was ranged in perfect loyalty against the work of desperate men.
His purpose? Perhaps he would have found it difficult to explain. Perhaps he could not have explained at all. His was a nature that demanded more than a life of healing could give him. There was the ceaseless call of the original man in him. It was a call so insistent that it must be obeyed, even while his mental attitude spurned the folly of it.
Abe Dodds was propped on an upturned bucket with his lean shoulders squared against the log walls of the shanty. His jaw was moving rhythmically as he chewed with nervous energy. The difference in him from the others was the difference of a calculating mind always working out the sum of life from a purely worldly side. He knew the values of the Bell River strike to an ounce. It was his business to know. And he was ready to pass through any furnace, human or hellish, to seize the fortune which he knew was literally at his feet. There was neither sentiment nor feeling in his regard of that which was yet to come. This was the great opportunity. He had lived and struggled north of "sixty" for this moment. He was ready to die if necessary for the achievement of all it meant.
The men sat on, each wrapped in his own mood as the pall of night unfolded itself. The last word had been given to those at the defences, and it had been full and complete. Joe Saunders held the pass down from above. It had been at his own definite request. But the moment attack came he would be supported by one of these three. It was for this reason that he was absent from the final vigil of his fellow leaders.
It was Abe who finally broke the prolonged silence. He broke it upon indifferent ears. But then he had not the same mood for silence.
"There's every sort of old chance lying around," he observed, as though following out his own long train of thought. "But I don't guess many of 'em's worth while. There's fellers 'ud hand over any sense they ever collected fer the dame that's had savvee to buy a fi' cent perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right up to my ear-drums." He laughed and spat. "There's a mighty big world to buy, an' when you got your fencing set up around it, why, there ain't a deal left outside that's worth corrallin'. I'd say it's only the folk who fancy the foolish house need to try an' buy a big pot on a pair o' deuces. If you stand on a 'royal' you can grab most anything. I got this thing figgered to a cent. When we're through there's those among us going to make home with a million dollars—cold."
"Ye-es."
Dr. Bill removed his pipe. His gaze was turned on the engineer, whose vigorous mind was searching only one side of the task before them. The side which appealed to him most.
"That million don't worry me a cent," he went on. "If life's just a matter of buying and selling you're li'ble to get sick of it quick."
Abe's eyes shot a swift glance in the doctor's direction.