If he and his two friends had declined to be a part of this meeting, the others could not have held it, and before another assembly could have been called the creek would have been staked from end to end, from rim to rim, by honest men, over whom no such action could pass; but, as it was, his own votes had been used to sew him up in a mesh of motions and resolutions.
"No Creek" Lee had the name of a man slow in speech and action, and one who roused himself to anger deliberately, much as a serpent stings itself into a painful fury; but now it was apparent that he was boiling over, for he stammered and halted and blurted explosively.
"You're a bunch of rascals, all of you, tryin' to down a pore girl and get her ground; but who put ye wise to this thing, in the first place?
Who found this gold?
Just because there's enough of you to vote that motion through, that don't make it legal, not by a damned sight, and it won't hold, because I won't write it in the book.

You--you--" He glared at them malevolently, searching his mind for an epithet sufficiently vile, and, finding it, spat it out--"dressmakers!" So this was why both Stark and Runnion had gone up the creek with the three new men, thought Burrell.

No doubt they had deliberately arranged the whole thing so that the new arrivals could immediately relocate each of Necia's claims--the pick of all the ground outside Lee's discovery, and the surest to be valuable--and that Stark would share in the robbery.

He or Runnion, or both of them, had broken Lee's oath of secrecy even before leaving camp, which accounted for the presence of these thugs; and now, as he revolved the situation rapidly in his mind, the soldier looked up at a sudden thought.

Poleon had begun to speak, and from his appearance it seemed possible that he might not cease with words; moreover, it was further evident that they were all intent on the excited Frenchman and had no eyes for the Lieutenant.