"You've got two hundred and forty-odd here and at Riley's; in all that number don't you suppose you could find a dozen or two who would stand by us?"
"Honestly, then, I don't, Mr. Ballard. I'm not lukewarm, as ye might think: I'll stand with you while I can squint an eye to sight th' gun. But the minute you tell the b'ys what you're wantin' them to do, that same minute they'll give you the high-ball signal and quit."
Ballard went into a brown study, and Fitzpatrick respected it. After a time the silence was broken by the faint tapping of the tiny telegraph instrument on the contractor's desk. Ballard's chair righted itself with a crash.
"The wire," he exclaimed; "I had forgotten that you had brought it down this far on the line. I wonder if I can get Bromley?"
"Sure ye can," said the contractor; and Ballard sat at the desk to try.
It was during the preliminary key-clickings that Blacklock came to the door of the pay office. "There's a man out here wanting to speak to you, Mr. Fitzpatrick," he announced; and the contractor went out, returning presently to break into Ballard's preoccupied effort to raise the office at Elbow Canyon.
"One of the foremen came in to say that the Craigmiles men were coming back. For the last half-hour horsemen by twos and threes have been trailing up the river road and heading for the ranch headquarters," was the information he brought.
"It's Carson's gang," said Ballard, at once.
"Yes; but I didn't give it away to the foreman. Their scheme is to make as much of a round-up as they can while it's light enough to see. There'll be a small piece of a moon, and that'll do for the drive down the canyon. Oh, I'll bet you they've got it all figured out to a dot. Carson's plenty smooth when it comes to plannin' any devilment."
Ballard turned back to the telegraph key and rattled it impatiently. Time was growing precious; was already temerariously short for carrying out the programme he had hastily determined upon in the few minutes of brown study.
"That you, Loudon?" he clicked, when, after interminable tappings, the breaking answer came; and upon the heels of the snipped-out affirmative he cut in masterfully.
"Ask no questions, but do as I say, quick. You said colonel had machine-gun at his mine: Rally gang stone-buckies, rush that gun, and capture it. Can you do it?"