The scene was strange enough, but for Buck it had nothing new. The gaunt faces and tattered clothing had long since ceased to drive him to despairing protest. He knew, in their own phraseology, they were “up against it” – the “it” in this case meaning the hideous spectre of starvation. He glanced over the faces and counted seven of them. He knew them all. But, drawing forward an upturned soap-box, he sat down and addressed himself to Curly Saunders, who happened to be lying on his elbow nearest the door.

“Say, I just came along to give you word that vittles are on the way from Leeson Butte,” he said, as though the fact was of no serious importance.

Curly, a short, thick-set man of enormous strength and round, youngish face, eased himself into a half-sitting position. But before he could answer another man, with iron-gray hair, sat up alertly and eyed their visitor without much friendliness.

“More o’ the Padre’s charity?” he said, in a manner that suggested resentment at the benefit he had no intention of refusing. Curiously enough, too, his careless method of expression in no way disguised the natural refinement of his voice.

Buck shook his head, and his eyes were cold.

“Don’t guess there’s need of charity among friends, Beasley.”

Beasley Melford laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

“Guess it makes him feel good dopin’ out stuff to us same as if we was bums,” he said harshly.

“Shut up!” cried a voice from a remote corner. Buck looked over and saw a lean, dark man hugging his knees and smoking a well-burnt briar pipe. The same voice went on: “Guess you’d sicken most anybody, Beasley. You got a mean mind. Guess the Padre’s a hell of a bully feller.”

“He sure is,” said Montana Ike, lolling over on to his side and pushing his canvas kit-bag into a more comfortable position. “You was sayin’ there was vittles comin’ along, Buck? Guess ther’ ain’t no ‘chawin’’ now?”

“Tobacco, sure,” responded Buck with a smile.

One by one the men sat up on their frowsy blankets. The thought of provisions seemed to have roused them from their lethargy. Buck’s eyes wandered over the faces peering at him out of the murky shadows. The squalor of the hut was painful, and, with the knowledge that help was at hand, the sight struck him even more forcibly.

“Quit work?” he asked a moment later, in his abrupt fashion.

Somebody laughed.

Buck looked round for an answer. And again his eyes caught the steely, ironical gleam in the man Beasley’s.

“The last o’ Slaney’s kids ‘passed in’ last night. Guess we’re goin’ to bury her.”

Buck nodded. He had no words. But he carefully avoided looking in the direction of Slaney Dick, who sat in a far corner smoking his pipe and hugging his great knees.

Beasley went on in the same half-mocking tone —

“Guess it’s up to me to read the service over her.”

“You!”

Buck could not help the ejaculation. Beasley Melford was an unfrocked Churchman. Nor was it known the reason of his dismissal from his calling. All Buck knew was that Beasley was a man of particularly low morals and detestable nature. The thought that he was to administer the last rites of the Church over the dead body of a pure and innocent infant set his every feeling in active protest. He turned to Slaney.

“The Padre buried the others?” he said questioningly.

It was Dick’s partner, Abe Allinson, who took it upon himself to answer.

“Y’ see the Padre’s done a heap. Slaney’s missis didn’t guess we’d orter worrit him. That’s how she said.”

Buck suddenly swung round on Beasley.

“Fix it for to-morrow, an’ the Padre’ll be right along.”

He looked the ex-Churchman squarely in the eye. He was not making a request. His words were an emphatic refusal to allow the other the office. It was Slaney who answered him.

“I’m glad,” he said. Then, as an afterthought, “an’ the missis’ll be glad, too.”

After that nobody seemed inclined to break the silence. Nor was it until somebody hawked and spat that the spell was broken.

“We bin holdin’ a meetin’,” said Curly Saunders heavily. “Y’ see, it ain’t no good.”

Buck nodded at the doorway.

“You mean – ?”

“The prospect,” Beasley broke in and laughed. “Say, we sure been suckers stayin’ around so long. Ther’ ain’t no gold within a hundred miles of us. We’re just lyin’ rottin’ around like – stinkin’ sheep.”

Curly nodded.

“Sure. That’s why we held a meeting. We’re goin’ to up stakes an’ git.”

“Where to?”

Buck’s quick inquiry met with a significant silence, which Montana Ike finally broke.

“See here,” he cried, with sudden force. “What’s the use in astin’ fool questions? Ther’ ain’t no gold, ther’ ain’t nuthin’. We got color fer scratchin’ when we first gathered around like skippin’ lambs, but ther’s nuthin’ under the surface, an’ the surface is played right out. I tell you it’s a cursed hole. Jest look around. Look at yonder Devil’s Hill. Wher’d you ever see the like? That’s it. Devil’s Hill. Say, it’s a devil’s region, an’ everything to it belongs to the devil. Ther’ ain’t nuthin’ fer us – nuthin’, but to die of starvin’. Ah, psha’! It’s a lousy world. Gawd, when I think o’ the wimminfolk it makes my liver heave. Say, some of them pore kiddies ain’t had milk fer weeks, an’ we only ke’p ’em alive thro’ youse two fellers. Say,” he went on, in a sudden burst of passion, “we got a right, same as other folk, to live, an’ our kids has, an’ our wimmin too. Mebbe we ain’t same as other folks, them folks with their kerridges an’ things in cities, mebbe our kiddies ain’t got no names by the Chu’ch, an’ our wimmin ain’t no Chu’ch writin’ fer sharin’ our blankets, but we got a right to live, cos we’re made to live. An’ by Gee! I’m goin’ to live! I tell youse folk right here, ther’s cattle, an’ ther’s horses, an’ ther’s grain in this dogone land, an’ I’m goin’ to git what I need of ’em ef I’m gettin’ it at the end of a gun! That’s me, fellers, an’ them as has the notion had best foller my trail.”

The hungry eyes of the man shone in the dusk of the room. The harsh lines of his weak face were desperate. Every word he said he meant, and his whole protest was the just complaint of a man willing enough to accept the battle as it came, but determined to save life itself by any means to his hand.

It was Beasley who caught at the suggestion.

“You’ve grit, Ike, an’ guess I’m with you at any game like that.”

Buck waited for the others. He had no wish to persuade them to any definite course. He had come there with definite instructions from the Padre, and in his own time he would carry them out.

A youngster, who had hitherto taken no part in the talk, suddenly lifted a pair of heavy eyes from the torn pages of a five-cent novel.

“Wal!” he cried abruptly. “Wot’s the use o’ gassin’? Let’s light right out. That’s how we sed ’fore you come along, Buck.” He paused, and a sly grin slowly spread over his features. Then, lowering his voice to a persuasive note, he went on, “Here, fellers, mebbe ther’ ain’t more’n cents among us. Wal, I’d sure say we best pool ’em, an’ I’ll set right out over to Bay Creek an’ git whisky. I’ll make it in four hours. Then we’ll hev jest one hell of a time to-night, an’ up stakes in the morning, fer – fer any old place out o’ here. How’s that?”

“Guess our few cents don’t matter, anyways,” agreed Curly, his dull eyes brightening. “I’d say the Kid’s right. I ain’t lapped a sup o’ rye in months.”

“It ain’t bad fer Soapy,” agreed Beasley. “Wot say, boys?”

He glanced round for approval and found it in every eye except Slaney’s. The bereaved father seemed utterly indifferent to anything except his own thoughts, which were of the little waxen face he had watched grow paler and paler in his arms only yesterday morning, until he had laid the poor little dead body in his weeping woman’s lap.

Buck felt the time had come for him to interpose. He turned on Beasley with unmistakable coldness.

“Guess the Padre got the rest of his farm money yesterday – when the woman came along,” he said. “An’ the vittles he ordered are on the trail. I’d say you don’t need to light out – yet.”

Beasley laughed offensively.

“Still on the charity racket?” he sneered.

Buck’s eyes lit with sudden anger.

“You don’t need to touch the vittles,” he cried. “You haven’t any woman, and no kiddies. Guess there’s nothing to keep you from getting right out.”

He eyed the man steadily, and then turned slowly to the others.

“Here, boys, the Padre says the food and canned truck’ll be along to-morrow morning. And you can divide it between you accordin’ to your needs. If you want to get out it’ll help you on the road. And he’ll hand each man a fifty-dollar bill, which’ll make things easier. If you want to stop around, and give the hill another chance, why the fifty each will make a grub stake.”

The proposition was received in absolute silence. Even Beasley had no sneering comment. The Kid’s eyes were widely watching Buck’s dark face. Slaney had removed his pipe, and, for the moment, his own troubles were forgotten under a sudden thrill of hope. Curly Saunders sat up as though about to speak, but no words came. Abe Allinson, Ike, and Blue Grass Pete contented themselves with staring their astonishment at the Padre’s munificence. Finally Slaney hawked and spat.

“Seems to me,” he said, in his quiet, drawling voice, “the Padre sold his farm to help us out.”

“By Gee! that’s so,” exclaimed Curly, thumping a fist into the palm of his other hand.

The brightening eyes lit with hope. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed to have lost something of its depression.

Ike shook his head.

“I’m gettin’ out. But say, the Padre’s a bully feller.”

Abe nodded.

“Ike’s right. Slaney an’ me’s gettin’ out, too. Devil’s Hill’s a cursed blank.”

“Me, too,” broke in the Kid. “But say, wot about poolin’ our cents for whisky?” he went on, his young mind still intent upon the contemplated orgie.

It was Buck who helped the wavering men to their decision. He understood them. He understood their needs. The ethics of the proposition did not trouble him. These men had reached a point where they needed a support such as only the fiery spirits their stomachs craved could give them. The Padre’s help would come afterward. At the moment, after the long weeks of disappointment, they needed something to lift them, even if it was only momentarily. He reached round to his hip-pocket and pulled out two single-dollar bills and laid them on the dusty ground in front of him.

“Ante up, boys,” he said cheerfully. “Empty your dips. The Kid’s right. An’ to-morrow you can sure choose what you’re going to do.” Then he turned to the Kid. “My plug Cæsar’s outside. Guess you best take him. He’ll make the journey in two hours. An’ you’ll need to bustle him some, because ther’s a kind o’ storm gettin’ around right smart. Eh?” He turned and glanced sharply at Beasley. “You got a dollar?”

“It’s fer whisky,” leered the ex-Churchman, as he laid the dirty paper on the top of Buck’s.

In two minutes the pooling was completed and the Kid prepared to set out. Eight dollars was all the meeting could muster – eight dollars collected in small silver, which represented every cent these men possessed in the world. Buck knew this. At least he could answer for everybody except perhaps Beasley Melford. That wily individual he believed was capable of anything. He was sure that he was capable of accepting anything from anybody, while yet being in a position to more than help himself.

Buck went outside to see the Kid off, and some of the men had gathered in the doorway. They watched the boy swing himself into the saddle, and the desperate shadows had lightened on their hungry faces. The buoyancy of their irresponsible natures was reasserting itself. That bridge, which the Padre’s promise had erected between their despair and the realms of hope, however slight its structure, was sufficient to lift them once more to the lighter mood so natural to them.

So their tongues were loosened, and they offered their messenger the jest from which they could seldom long refrain, the coarse, deep-throated jest which sprang from sheer animal spirits rather than any subtlety of wit. They forgot for the time that until Buck’s coming they had contemplated the burial of a comrade’s only remaining offspring. They forgot that the grieving father was still within the hut, his great jaws clenched upon the mouthpiece of his pipe, his hollow eyes still gazing straight in front of him. That was their way. There was a slight ray of hope for them, a brief respite. There was the thought, too, of eight dollars’ worth of whisky, a just portion of which was soon to be in each stomach.

But Buck was not listening to them. He had almost forgotten the messenger riding away on his treasured horse, so occupied was he by the further change that had occurred in the look of the sky and in the atmosphere of the valley. Presently he lifted one strong, brown hand to his forehead and wiped the beads of perspiration from it.

“Phew! What heat! Here,” he cried, pointing at Devil’s Hill, away to his left, “what d’you make of that?”

For a moment all eyes followed the direction of his outstretched arm. And slowly there grew in them a look of awe such as rarely found place in their feelings.

The crown of the hill, the whole of the vast, black plateau was enveloped in a dense gray fog. Above that hung a mighty, thunderous pall of purple storm-cloud. Back, away into the mountains in billowy rolls it extended, until the whole distance was lost in a blackness as of night.

It was Curly Saunders who broke the awed silence.

“Jumpin’ Mackinaw!” he cried. Then he looked after their departing messenger. “Say, that feller oughtn’t to’ve gone to Bay Creek. He’ll never make it.”

Beasley, whose feelings were less susceptible, and whose mind was set on the promised orgie, sneered at the other’s tone.

“Skeered some, ain’t you? Tcha’! It’s jest wind – ”

But he never completed his sentence. At that instant the whole of the heavens seemed to split and gape open. A shaft of light, extending from horizon to horizon, paralyzed their vision. It was accompanied by a crash of thunder that set their ear-drums well-nigh bursting. Both lightning and the thunder lasted for what seemed interminable minutes and left their senses dazed, and the earth rocking beneath their feet. Again came the blinding light, and again the thunder crashed. Then, in a moment, panic had set in, and the tattered blanket had fallen behind the last man as a rush was made for the doubtful shelter of the hut.