"It simply means that the upper court would take the case away
from this one."

"Well, let's send him out quick. Every day means ten thousand
dollars to us. It 'll take him a month to make the round trip, so
I s'pose he ought to leave tomorrow on the Roanoke."

"Yes, but where's the money to do it with? McNamara has ours. My
God! What a mess we're in! What fools we've been, Dex! There's a
conspiracy here. I'm beginning to see it now that it's too late.
This man is looting our country under color of law, and figures on
gutting all the mines before we can throw him off. That's his
game. He'll work them as hard and as long as he can, and Heaven
only knows what will become of the money. He must have big men
behind him in order to fix a United States judge this way. Maybe
he has the 'Frisco courts corrupted, too."

"If he has, I'm goin' to kill him," said Dextry. "I've worked like
a dog all my life, and now that I've struck pay I don't aim to
lose it. If Bill Wheaton can't win out accordin' to law, I'm goin'
to proceed accordin' to justice."

During the past two days the partners had haunted the court-room
where their lawyer, together with the counsel for the
Scandinavians, had argued and pleaded, trying every possible
professional and unprofessional artifice in search of relief from
the arbitrary rulings of the court, while hourly they had become
more strongly suspicious of some sinister plot--some hidden,
powerful understanding back of the Judge and the entire mechanism