Kells seemed suddenly to inflame, to blaze with white passion. “Good for Jim!” he yelled, ringingly. He could scarcely have been more elated if he had made the strike himself.
Jesse Smith came stamping in, with a crowd elbowing their way behind him. Joan had a start of the old panic at sight of Gulden. For once the giant was not slow nor indifferent. His big eyes glared. He brought back to Joan the sickening sense of the brute strength of his massive presence. Some of his cronies were with him. For the rest, there were Blicky and Handy Oliver and Chick Williams. The whole group bore resemblance to a pack of wolves about to leap upon its prey. Yet, in each man, excepting Gulden, there was that striking aspect of exultation.
“Where's Jim?” demanded Kells.
“He's comin' along,” replied Pearce. “He's sure been runnin' a gantlet. His strike stopped work in the diggin's. What do you think of that, Kells? The news spread like smoke before wind. Every last miner in camp has jest got to see thet lump of gold.”
“Maybe I don't want to see it!” exclaimed Kells. “A thirty-pounder! I heard of one once, sixty pounds, but I never saw it. You can't believe till you see.”
“Jim's comin' up the road now,” said one of the men near the door. “Thet crowd hangs on.... But I reckon he's shakin' them.”
“What'll Cleve do with this nugget?”
Gulden's big voice, so powerful, yet feelingless, caused a momentary silence. The expression of many faces changed. Kells looked startled, then annoyed.
“Why, Gulden, that's not my affair—nor yours,” replied Kells. “Cleve dug it and it belongs to him.”
“Dug or stole—it's all the same,” responded Gulden.