In her little alcove at the Blue Goose Élise was gaining information every day of the progress of affairs, but in spite of impatience, in spite of doubt, she had seen nothing, heard nothing that seemed to demand immediate action on her part. She had made up her mind that a crisis was approaching. She had also determined with whom she would cast in her lot.

It was late when Hartwell's team pulled up at the Blue Goose. A crowd of excited men surrounded it, but the driver and his companions made no reply to loud questions as they sprang from the wagon and entered the door. Morrison was the first to halt them. The driver broke out with a string of oaths.

"It's so. Jack Haskins's gang is coming. Hartwell is taken care of all right. If his crowd try to make it through the caÑon, there won't a hundred show up, to-morrow." He ended with a coarse laugh.

Morrison listened till the driver had finished. Then he turned toward Pierre. Pierre was standing just in front of the alcove, hiding Élise from Morrison. Morrison advanced, shaking his fist.

"Now you've got it, you trimmer. What are you going to do? I told you they were coming, and I've fixed for it."

Pierre stood with his hands in his pockets. There was the old oily smile on his face, but his eyes were dangerous. Morrison did not observe them.

"Why don't you speak? You're called." Morrison glanced over his shoulder at the silent crowd. "He's got a frog in his throat! The last one he swallowed didn't go down."

Morrison was very near death. He noticed the crowd part hurriedly and turned in time to look into the muzzle of Pierre's revolver. The parting of the crowd was explained.

An unlighted cigar was between Pierre's teeth. They showed gleaming white under his black moustache. Only bright points of light marked his eyes between their narrowed lids. Still holding his revolver point-blank, with thumb and finger he raised and lowered the hammer. The sharp, even click pierced Morrison's nerves like electric shocks. It was not in man to endure this toying with death. Surprise gave place to fear, and this in turn to mortal agony. His face paled. Great drops stood out on his forehead, gathered and streamed down his face. He feared to move, yet he trembled. His legs shook under him. There was a final stagger, but his terrified eyes never left Pierre's face. With a shuddering groan, he sank helpless to the floor. Pierre's smile broadened horribly. He lowered his weapon and, turning aside, thrust it in his pocket.

Morrison had died a thousand deaths. If he lived he would die a thousand more. This Pierre knew. For this reason and others he did not shoot. Pierre also knew other things. Morrison had refused to take heed to his words. He had gone his own way. He had made light of Pierre before the men. Last of all, he had gained courage to taunt Pierre to his face with weakening, had bitterly accused him of using Élise as a means of ingratiating himself with the Rainbow crowd. Pierre was not above taking a human life as a last resort; but even then he must see clearly that the gain warranted the risk. Morrison had been weighed and passed upon. A dead Morrison meant a divided following. A living Morrison, cowed and beaten and shamed before them all, was dead to Pierre. This was Pierre's reasoning, and he was right. The first step had been taken. The next one he was not to take; but this fact did not nullify Pierre's logic. Given time, Pierre knew that Morrison would be beaten, discredited, do what he would.

Luna helped the fallen Morrison to his feet. The first thing Morrison noticed was Pierre walking away toward the private office. Luna again approached Morrison with a brimming glass of brandy.

"Take this down. Lord! That was a nerve-peeler! I don't blame you for going under."

Morrison swallowed the liquor at a gulp. The pallor died away and a hot flush mounted his face.

"I've got him to settle with, too. I'll make him squeal before I'm done."

The crowd had surged to the door to meet a swarm of howling men who had just come down from the mine. Three or four remained with Luna around Morrison. His voice was hoarse and broken.

"He's thrown us over. You see that? It's up to us to play it alone. He's put it up to your face that he's with you, but he's playing against you. He can't stop us now. It's gone too far. The first tug is coming, to-morrow. We'll win out, hands down. The Rainbow first, then Pierre." He ended with a string of profanity.

Luna took up Morrison's broken thread.

"There's fifty men with rifles in the caÑon. Hartwell's gang will never get through. The boys are going to shoot at sight."

"Where's Firmstone?" Morrison's face writhed.

"Up to the mine. He's getting in his work." Luna looked over his shoulder at the crowd of miners.

"That's so. The foreman's fired. So am I. He is going to die boss." The man grinned, as he held out a time check.

"He'll die, anyway." Morrison's jaws set. "You're sure he's at the mine?"

"Dead sure. He's got his work cut out to-night. Lots of scabs held out. He's put the night boss in foreman." The man grinned again.

Morrison laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You're game?"

"You bet I am!"

"Go back to the mine to-night——"

"And miss all the fun down here?" the man interrupted.

Morrison's hand rested more heavily on the shoulder.

"Don't get flip. Have some fun of your own up there. The supe will hear the racket down here early. He'll start down with his scabs to help out. Two men can start a racket there that will keep him guessing. If he's started it will fetch him back. If he hasn't he won't start at all."

"What kind of a racket, for instance?"

Morrison swung impatiently on his foot.

"What's the matter with letting off a box or two of powder under the tram?"

"Nothing. Is that our job?"

"Yes. And see that it's done."

"That's me. Come on, Joe. Let's have a drink first."

These two were the penitents whom Firmstone had taken back.

The greater number of the men were crowded around the gilded bar, drinking boisterously to the success of the union and death to scabs and companies. A few, more sober-minded, but none the less resolute, gathered around Morrison. They were the leaders upon whom he depended for the carrying out of his orders, or for acting independently of them on their own initiative, as occasion might demand. With logic fiendish in its cunning, he pointed out to them their right to organise, laid emphasis on their pacific intentions only to defend their rights, and having enlarged upon this, he brought into full play Hartwell's fatal error.

"You see," he concluded; "right or wrong, the company's gone in to win. They ain't taking no chances, and the law's at their backs. You know Haskins's gang. You know what they're here for. They're here to shoot, and they'll shoot to kill. Suppose you go out like lambs? That won't make no difference. It'll be too tame for them, unless some one's killed. What if it is murder and one of the gang is pulled? They've got the whole gang at their back and the company's money. Suppose we go out one by one and shoot back? Self-defence?" Morrison snapped his fingers. "That's our chance to get off. We've got to pull together. In a general mix-up, we'll be in it together, and there ain't no law to string up the whole push. Stick together. That's our hold. If Haskins's gang is wiped out to-morrow, and that glass-eyed supe with them, who'll get jumped? If the mine and mill both get blowed up, who's done it? The fellows who did it ain't going to tell, and it won't be good medicine for any one else to do it, even if he wants to."

"Who's going to open up?" one of the men asked, soberly.

Morrison turned carelessly.

"That's a fool question. Folks that ain't looking for trouble don't put caps and powder in a bag to play foot-ball with. Both sides are putting up kicks. Who's to blame?"

The man looked only half convinced.

"Well, we ain't, and we don't want to be. If we keep quiet, and they open up on us, we've got a right to defend ourselves. Unless," he added, meditatively, "we get out beforehand, then there won't be any questions to ask."

Morrison turned fiercely.

"How much did you get?"

"Get for what?"

"How much did the company put up to stand you off?"

"I haven't been bought off by the company," the man answered, fiercely; "and I ain't going to be fooled off by you."

Morrison lifted his hand, palm outward.

"That's all right. Go right on, first door right. Go right in. Don't knock. You'll find Pierre. He's scab-herding now."

Morrison passed among the thronging men, giving suggestions and orders for the morning's struggle. His manner was forced, rather than spontaneous. Pierre's leaven was working.

To Élise at her desk it seemed as if the revel would never end. She had made up her mind what to do, she was awaiting the time to act. She did not dare to leave her place now; Morrison would be certain to notice her absence and would suspect her designs. There was nothing to do but wait. It was after one o'clock when, slipping out from the alcove, she ostentatiously closed the office-door and, locking it, walked through the passage that led to the dining-room. Her footsteps sounded loudly as she went upstairs to her room. She intended they should. In her room, she took down a dark, heavy cloak, and, throwing it over her shoulders, drew the hood over her head. A moment she stood, then turned and silently retraced her steps.

As the outside door closed noiselessly behind her, there was a momentary tightening around her heart. After all, she was leaving the only friends she had ever known. They were crude, coarse, uncouth, but she knew them. She knew that they would not remain ignorant of her actions this night. It would cut her off from them forever, and what was her gain?

Only those she had known for a day, those whose very words of kindness had shown her how wide was the gulf that parted her from them. How wide it was she had never realised till now when she was to attempt to cross it, with the return for ever barred. She recalled the easy grace of Miss Hartwell, considerate with a manner that plainly pointed to their separate walks in life. And Firmstone? He had been more than kind, but the friendly light in his eyes, the mobile sympathy of his lips, these did not come to her now. What if the steel should gleam in his eyes, the tense muscles draw the lips in stern rebuke, the look that those eyes and lips could take, when they looked on her, not as Élise of the Blue Goose, but Élise, a fugitive, a dependant?

The colour deepened, the figure grew rigid. She was neither a fugitive nor a dependant. She was doing right; how it would be accepted was no concern of hers.

The shadow of the great mountain fell across the gulch and lay sharp and clear on the flank of the slide beyond. Overhead, in the deep blue, the stars glinted and shone, steely hard. Élise shivered in a hitherto unknown terror as she crept into the still deeper shadow of the stunted spruces that fringed the talus from the mountain. She did not look behind. Had she done so she might have seen another shadow stealing cautiously, but swiftly, after her, only pausing when she passed from sight within the entrance to the office at the mill.

Zephyr had despoiled the Blue Goose of its lesser prey. He had no intention of stopping at that.

Élise had gained her first objective point. It was long before the light in Miss Hartwell's room over the office descended the stairs and appeared at the outer door. Her face was pale, but yet under control. Only, as she clasped the hand that had knocked for admission, she could not control the grasp that would not let go its hold, even when the door was relocked.

"It was very good of you to come."