proceeded swiftly to the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's mill-office.
From a locker the Colonel produced a repeating rifle and three boxes
of cartridges, which he handed to the cholo, who departed without
further ado into the night.

Twenty minutes later, from the top of a lumber-pile in Cardigan's
drying-yard, Bryce Cardigan saw the flash of a rifle and felt a
sudden sting on his left forearm. He leaped around in front of the
cowcatcher to gain the shelter of the engine, and another bullet
struck at his feet and ricocheted off into the night. It was followed
by a fusillade, the bullets kicking up the freshly disturbed earth
among the workers and sending them scurrying to various points of
safety. In an instant the crossing was deserted, and work had been
stopped, while from the top of the adjacent lumber-pile the Black
Minorca poured a stream of lead and filthy invective at every point
which he suspected of harbouring a Cardigan follower.

"I don't think he's hurt anybody," Buck Ogilvy whispered as he
crouched with Bryce beside the engine, "but that's due to his
marksmanship rather than his intentions."

"He tried hard enough to plug me," Bryce declared, and showed the
hole through his sleeve. "They call him the Black Minorca, and he's a
mongrel greaser who'd kill his own mother for a fifty-dollar bill."

"I'd like to plug him," Buck murmured regretfully.

"What would be the use? This will be his last night in Humboldt
County--"