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"Mexicali is my man right now," he said at last. "I got him in jail."

That was all. There was no belligerence in his tone; his look remained untroubled. Babe Deveril, beginning to understand something of what had happened and casting his own swift horoscope of the likely future, wondered to what extent it was in the cards that Jim Taggart should stand in his way. There was big game in the wind, or men like Gallup and Taggart, who were always big-game men, would not be taking things upon their shoulders thus. And to-day Jim Taggart was at his best; he stood as solid and unmoved as a rock, with never a flick of the eyelid, as he made his quiet announcement and awaited the breaking of any storm which his words might evoke.

There was a short lull while men murmured among themselves, and yet, digesting Taggart's statement, impressed by his manner, hesitated to speak the thought which was forming in dozens of brains simultaneously. Presently, however, a man at the far edge of the crowd shouted: