His prophecy remained uncompleted. He was suddenly caught by a powerful hand, and the next instant he found himself swung to the outskirts of the crowd with terrific force.
In a furious rage he pulled himself together just in time to see Buck, pale with anger, seize the nugget from Pete's outstretched palm.
"You don't need to worry with the trouble in that gold," he said with biting coldness, raising it at arm's length above his head.
Then before any one was aware of his intention he flung it with all his force upon the flagstone at Joan's feet. Quickly he stooped and picked it up again, and again flung it down with all his strength. He repeated the process several times, and finally held it out toward the troubled girl.
"You ken take it now," he said, his whole manner softening. "Guess Beasley's 'death's head' has gone--to its grave. Ther' ain't no sort o' trouble can hurt any, if--you only come down on it hard enough. The trouble ain't in that gold now, only in the back of Beasley's head. An' when it gets loose, wal--I allow there's folks around here won't see it come your way. You can sure take it now."
Joan reached out a timid hand, while her troubled violet eyes looked into Buck's face as though fascinated. The man moved a step nearer, and the small hand closed over the battered nugget.
"Take it," he said encouragingly. "It's an expression of the good feelings of the boys. An' I don't guess you need be scared of _them_."
Joan took the gold, but there was no smile in her eyes, no thanks on her lips. She stepped back to her doorway and passed within.
"I'm tired," she said, and her words were solely addressed to Buck. He nodded, while she closed the door. Then he turned about.
The fur fort was a relic of ancient days, when the old-time traders of the North sent their legions of pelt hunters from the far limits of the northern ice-world to the sunny western slopes of the great American continent. It was at such a place as this, hemmed in amidst the foot-hills, that they established their factor and his handful of armed men; lonely sentries at the gates of the mountain world, to levy an exorbitant tax upon the harvest of furs within.
Here, within the ponderous stockade, now fallen into sore decay, behind iron-bound doors secured by mighty wooden locks, and barred with balks of timber, sheltered beneath the frowning muzzles of half a dozen futile carronades, they reveled in obscene orgies and committed their barbaric atrocities under the name of Justice and Commerce. Here they amassed wealth for the parent companies in distant lands, and ruthlessly despoiled the wild of its furry denizens.