To account for the sudden appearance of Gashford, as told in our last chapter, it is necessary to explain that two marauding Indians chanced to pay Pine Tree Diggings a visit one night, almost immediately after the unsuccessful attack made by Stalker and his men. The savages³ were more successful than the white robbers had been. They managed to carry off a considerable quantity of gold without being discovered, and Gashford, erroneously attributing their depredations⁵ to a second visit from Stalker, was so enraged⁶ that he resolved to pursue and utterly⁷ root out the robber-band. Volunteers were not wanting. Fifty stout⁸ young fellows offered their services, and, at the head of these, Gashford set out for the Sawback Mountains, which were known to be the retreat of the bandits. An Indian, who knew the region well, and had once been ill-treated by Stalker, became a willing guide.

He led the gold-diggers to the robbers’ retreat, and there, learning from a brother savage² that the robber-chief and his men had gone off to hunt up Paul Bevan in the region that belonged to Unaco, he led his party by a short cut over the mountains, and chanced to come on the scene of action at the critical moment, when Unaco and his party were about to attack the robbers. Ignorant of who the parties were that contended, yet feeling pretty sure that the men he sought for probably formed one of them, he formed the somewhat hazardous¹⁰ determination, personally and alone, to join the rush of the assailants, under cover of the darkness; telling his lieutenant¹¹, Crossby, to await his return, or to bring on his men at the run if they should hear his well-known signal.

On joining the attacking party without having been observed—or, rather, having been taken for one of the band in the uncertain light—he recognised Westly’s and Flinders’s voices at once, and thus it was that he suddenly gave his unasked advice on the subject then under discussion.

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