"No, don't go, father!" she cried appealingly and as Bunker replied with an evasive laugh she turned her anger upon Denver.
"Why don't you get back your own mine?" she demanded, "instead of dragging my father into it?"
"Never mind, now," protested Bunker, "we ain't going to have no trouble--we just want to have a friendly talk. This has nothing to do with Denver or his mine--all we want is a few words with Dave."
"He'll shoot you!" she insisted. "Oh, I just know something will happen. Well, all right, then; I'm going along too!"
"Why, sure," smiled Bunker, "always glad to have company--but you'd better stay back with your mother."
"No, I'm going to stay right here," she answered stubbornly, giving Denver a hateful glance, "because I don't believe a word you say."
"Ve-ry well, my dear," responded Bunker indulgently and took her under his arm.
"I'm going ahead!" she burst out quickly as they came to the turn in the trail; and before he could stop her she slipped out of his embrace and went running to the entrance of the cut. But there she halted suddenly and when they came up they found her pale and trembling. "Oh, go back!" she gasped. "He's in there--he'll shoot you. I know something awful will happen!"
"You'd better go back, now," suggested her father quietly, and then he turned to the barrier. "Don't start anything, Dave--we've come peaceable, this time; so come out and let's have a talk."
There was a long, tense silence and then the muzzle of a gun stirred uneasily and revealed the hiding place of Dave. He was crouched behind the rocks which he had piled up across the cut where it entered the slope of the hill, and his long barrelled six-shooter was thrust out through a crack just wide enough to serve for a loop-hole.
"Don't want to talk," he answered at last. "So go on, now; get off of my property."
"Well, now listen," began Bunker shaking off Drusilla's grasp, "we acknowledge we made a slight mistake. We tried to run a whizzer and you called us good and plenty--all right then, now let's have a talk. If you can show title to this ground you're holding, we'll leave you in peaceful possession; and if you can't, you're just wasting your time and talents, because there's plenty more claims that ain't took. It's a cinch you can't hide in that hole forever, so you might as well have it out now."
