For the two or three gun men—Kootenay Jim, John of Slocan, and Denver Ike—Carney had his own terrible personality and his six-gun; he could deal with those three toughs if necessary.
"Now tell me, boys, what started this hellery," Carney asked when they had drunk.
The story was fired at him; if a voice hesitated, another took up the narrative.
Miners returning from the gold field up in the Eagle Hills had mysteriously disappeared, never turning up at Bucking Horse. A man would have left the Eagle Hills, and somebody drifting in from the same place later on, would ask for him at Bucking Horse—nobody had seen him.
Then one after another two skeletons had been found on the trail; the bodies had been devoured by wolves.
"And wolves don't eat gold—not what you'd notice, as a steady chuck," Kootenay Jim yelped.
"Men wolves do," Carney thrust back, and his gray eyes said plainly, "That's your food, Jim."
"Meanin' what by that, pard?" Kootenay snarled, his face evil in a threat.
"Just what the words convey—you sort them out, Kootenay."
But Miner Graham interposed. "We got kinder leary about this wolf game, Carney, 'cause they ain't bothered nobody else 'cept men packin' in their winnin's from the Eagle Hills; and four days ago Caribou Dave—here he is sittin' right here—he arrives packin' Fourteen-foot Johnson—that is, all that's left of Fourteen-foot."