"Am I game?" Glenister's nostrils dilated and his voice rose a
tone. "Am I game? I'm with you till the big cash-in, and Lord have
mercy on any man that blocks our game to-night."

"We'll need another hand to help us," said Dextry. "Who can we
get?"

At that moment, as though in answer, the door opened with the
scant ceremony that friends of the frontier are wont to observe,
admitting the attenuated, flapping, dome-crowned figure of
Slapjack Simms, and Dextry fell upon him with the hunger of a
wolf.

It was midnight and over the dark walls of the valley peered a
multitude of stars, while away on the southern horizon there
glowed a subdued effulgence as though from hidden fires beneath
the Gold God's caldron, or as though the phosphorescence of Bering
had spread upward into the skies. Although each night grew longer,
it was not yet necessary to light the men at work in the cuts.
There were perhaps two hours in which it was difficult to see at a
distance, but the dawn came early, hence no provision had been
made for torches.

Five minutes before the hour the night-shift boss lowered the
gates in the dam, and, as the rush from the sluices subsided, his
men quit work and climbed the bluff to the mess tent. The
dwellings of the Midas, as has already been explained, sat back
from the creek at a distance of a city block, the workings being
thus partially hidden under the brow of the steep bank.