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CHAPTER 20

      FIRES FLARED outside the tents and shacks that lined the river as the mining camp came alive a little before dawn.

      After the hanging of Dipp and a night of numbing cold, friends met in small clusters at the fires. While they cooked and ate and warmed themselves, they talked about the man swinging gently in the morning breeze a few dozen yards away. It was a sight that Purdy avoided looking at.

      A little later, when the day warmed up, the former deputy would be cut down, wrapped in a canvas tarp, and accompanied by a few sentences from the Bible, he would be laid to rest in a shallow grave. Nobody would send for Hopper to do this job because they knew he was a friend of Amhearst and a member of the hated Law and Order Committee. Besides, who wanted to go to the expense of a box for Dipp?

      Almost none of the miners believed the little deputy was following Amhearst's orders or would have turned the gold over to the sheriff. But even if it was true, they thought the penalty for sticking a knife in a sleeping man's neck deserved a good swing. Others saw it as an example of what was happening in the camp because of Amhearst and his associates. They felt themselves attacked by outside forces.

      Beeme, and Purdy warmed themselves around one of the fires, watching Pike cook breakfast. Beeme said, "They used to cheat us out of our claims with pieces of paper. Now they're coming after us with knives and guns."

      "There's one less now," Pike said. "We should go down and clean 'em out . . . run them out of town, or set up our own court like we did last night and hang 'em,"

      He was making mush bread by frying a mixture of corn meal, warm water, baking power and salt in bacon grease. While it was cooking he took three live trout from a cloth sack in the river, whacked their heads on a rock, gutted them and laid them in a second pan with sizzling lard.

      Purdy, who nursed the coffeepot simmering at the edge of the fire, hadn't realized how ravenous he was until he smelled the cooking.

      Beeme said, "That's a knife that cuts both ways. You want to go to Tres Marias and clean 'em out — and that's not a bad idea — but unfortunately, our hanging Dipp gives Amhearst a chance, too. He could come over here with a few of his friends and clean us out in the name of law and order — for hanging his deputy, even though we did give him a reasonably fair trail."

      Pike poked the fire with a stick and stared at the flames. "Either way, I think we should set up some kind of security perimeter so if they come for us, we'll be ready, and if we decide to go after them, we'll have men to do it. What do you think, Purdy?"

      Purdy was thinking about the trout. It seemed to him that he had eaten better since he came to Tres Marias than he usually did.

      "Getting some men to stand guard is a good idea, especially at night," he said, "But I think we should wait a couple of days and see what happens before we try to take Nugent and his gang ourselves."

      Pike forked some of the bread and fish onto a tin plate and handed it to Purdy, who bit into it gratefully.

      After they finished eating, Pike lumbered to his feet. Seated he looked fat, but when he stood, he looked more like a grizzly — all power. "I'll go round up some volunteers. The hardest part of this is going to be fighting off all the men who'll want to join up." He paused a moment. "Truth to tell, the only thing that bothers me is that this ain't nice and legal. What we're doing really is forming a lynch gang."

      "Would it help if you had the backing of a lawman?" Beeme asked, smiling with his secret.

      Pike shrugged.

      "Okay if we show him?" Beeme asked Purdy.

      Purdy dug out his wallet and pulled out Feeney's deputy marshal identification, and showed Pike the star. "Under my real name, I'm Deputy Marshal Kenneth Feeney." He smiled innocently. "But nobody else has to know that, understand? I just want you all to keep on calling me plain old Bill Purdy."

      Pike's bearded face split into a grin. "Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better."

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