"I'm glad to death to meet up with you again, Mr. Elliot," he jeered. "Seems like old times on Wild-Goose."
"Whad you say his name is?" cut in the man with the newspaper.
"Hasn't he introduced himself, boys?" Macy answered with a cruel grin. "Now, ain't that modest of him? You lads are entertaining that well-known deteckative and spy Gordon Elliot, that renowned king of hold-ups—"
The red-headed man interrupted with a howl of rage. "If you're telling it straight, Bill Macy, I'll learn him to spy on me."
Elliot was sitting on one of the beds. He had not moved an inch since Macy had appeared, but the brain behind his live eyes was taking stock of the situation. Big Bill blocked the doorway. The table was in front of the window. Unless he could fight his way out, there was no escape for him. He was trapped.
Quietly Gordon looked from one to another. He read no hope in the eyes of any.
"I'm not spying on you. My horse is lame. You can see that for yourself. All I asked was a night's lodging."
"Under another name than your own, you damned sneak."
The field agent did not understand the fury of the man, because he did not know that these miners were working the claim under a defective title and that they had jumped to the conclusion that he had come to get evidence against them. But he knew that never in his life had he been in a tighter hole. In another minute they would attack him. Whether it would run to murder he could not tell. At the best he would be hammered helpless.
But no evidence of this knowledge appeared in his manner.