But at last a tired brain refused to create more of these swift pictures. She stared out and did not think. She merely felt the weight of the silence, the weight of utter loneliness. With dragging feet she returned to her fire and looked into the coals, and from them to the further dark, and from it back to the pale light about her canvas. She sank into a condition of lethargy. The silence had worked a sort of hypnosis in her. Briefly, in her wide-opened eyes there was no light of interest. Vaguely, as though she had no great personal concern in the matter, she wondered how long it would be before one left alone here would go mad. And would the mad one shout shrieking defiance at the silence?—or go about on tip-toe, finger laid across his lips?

The morning wore on. At one moment she was plunged into a deep, chaotic abyss that was neither unconsciousness nor reverie, and yet which strangely partook of both. A moment later she was vaguely aware of a difference; it was as though a presence, though what sort she could not tell, had approached, were near her, all about her. That instant of uncertainty was brief, gone in a flash. She turned and a little glad cry broke from her lips. A streak of sunshine lay across the rocks at the cave's mouth.

It was like the visit of an angel. More than that, like the face of a beloved friend. She ran to her canvas and looked out. There was a rift in the sombre roofing of clouds; she saw a strip of clean blue sky through which a splendid sun shone. And yet the snow was falling on all hands, snow bright with a new shining whiteness. She watched that little strip of heaven's blue eagerly and anxiously; was it widening? Or were the clouds crowding over it again?

But though this seemed the one consideration of importance in all the world for her just now, in another instant it was swept from her mind, forgotten. Far below her, down in the gorge, she saw something moving! And that something, ploughing laboriously through depths and drifts of loose fluffy snow, was a man. Now her thoughts raced again. It was King. He was coming back to her.... No; it was not King; it was Swen Brodie! She began to tremble violently. She had barely strength to draw back, to pull the canvas closer to the rocks, to strive to hide. If Brodie came now, if Brodie found her here, alone——That fear which is in all female hearts, that boundless terror of the one creature who is her greatest protector, her vilest enemy, more dreaded than a wild beast, gripped her and shook her and swiftly beat the strength out of her. But, fascinated, she clung to the rocks and watched.

The man struggling weakly against the pitiless wilderness, wallowing in the snow, seemed to make his way along the gorge inch by inch. He carried something on his back, something white under the falling snow which whitened his hat and labouring shoulders. A sack with something in it, something to which he clung tenaciously. How he floundered and battled against the high-heaped white stuff about him which held him back, which mounted about his legs, up to his waist; at times, when he floundered he was all but lost in it. He lay still like a dead man; he struggled, and began crawling on again. He stopped and looked about him —how her heart pounded then! He was looking for something, seeking something! Her!

She was so certain it must be Brodie. Yet she remained motionless, powerless to move though she remembered King's word of the hiding-place where she would be safe; she peered out, fascinated.

In time the man came closer and the first suspicion entered her mind that, after all, it might not be Brodie. He stopped; he was exhausted; he pulled off his hat and ran his hand across his face. Then, still bareheaded, he looked up. It was Gratton!

Gratton alone; Gratton looking back over his shoulder more often than he quested far ahead; Gratton in a mad attempt to make haste where haste was impossible. Now his every gesture bespoke a frantic haste. He was escaping from something. Then, what? He had left the other men; he was running away from them. She knew it as well as if he had screamed it into her ears. A sudden spurt of pity for him entered her heart; he seemed so beaten and bewildered and frantic and terrified; who, better than she, could sympathize with one in Gratton's predicament? She looked far down the gorge; she could see, like a bluish crooked shadow, the trail which he had made after him. No one else in sight! Then she forgot everything saving that she and Gratton were alone, that they had been friends, that they were bound in a common fate. She leaned as far out as she could; he was just below now; she called to him.

He stopped dead in his tracks; he jerked his head up and stared wildly; his mouth dropped open, and in the shock of the moment speech was denied him. She called again.

"You!" Had not the silence been so complete his gasping voice would have failed to reach her; as it was she barely heard it. "You, Gloria? Here? My God—have I gone mad?"

The man's villainy of so few days ago appeared now, in the biassed light of circumstance, a pardonable, a forgettable offence. He had loved her; he had wanted to marry her; he had, with that in mind, tricked her. He had taken advantage of the universal admission that in love as in war all things were fair. The ugliness of what he had done was chiefly ugly because it had lain against a background of commonplace and convention; here, at the time when no considerations existed save the eternal and vital ones, all of Gratton's futile trickery was as though it had never been. She was calling to him again, urging him to clamber up the cliff, bidding him hurry before he was seen.

"How came you here?" was all that he could find words for. "You! And here!"

She would tell him everything! But he must not tarry down there. He must make haste——

Her words cleared his bewilderment away; he glanced again over his shoulder. The gorge was empty of other human presence. He looked back up at her. And then, before her eager eyes, he slumped down where he stood, lying in the snow.

"I can't." She heard his voice as across a distance ten times that which separated them. In it was bleak despair. "I've gone through hell already. I am—nearly dead. I couldn't climb up there. I——Oh, my God, why did I ever come into this inferno!"

She begged, she urged. But he only turned a white face up to her and lay where he had fallen, his body shaking visibly, what with the strain he had put upon it and the emotions which only his own soul knew.

"But it is so easy," she cried to him, forgetful of her now terror at mounting up here. "I have done it. Twice. I will show you just which way, where to set your feet."

"I can't," he said miserably. "It was all I could do to get this far. I—I think I am dying——"

Again and again she pleaded with him. But he had either reached the limit of his physical endurance or, shaken and unnerved, he had not the courage to attempt the steep climb. He lay still; his eyes were shut, and to Gloria, too, came the swift fear that the man might be dying.

"I am coming to you!" she called.

She began making the hazardous descent. She did not take time to ask herself if she could make it; she knew only that she must. She set foot on the narrow, sloping ledge outside, brushing off the snow with her boot, clinging with her hands to a splinter of granite, feeling her way cautiously, careful to move inch by inch along the way down which she had gone twice with Mark King. Her fingers, already cold when she started, went numb; they were at all times either in pits and pockets of snow or gripping the rough stone that was ice-cold. Painfully but steadily she climbed down and down. She strove not to look down; she had no eyes for Gratton, who now sat upright, his jaw still sagging, and marvelled at her. A dozen times he was prepared to see her slip and fall.

After a weary time she came to the base of the cliffs. Gratton was not a dozen paces from her. He looked to her like a sick man, gaunt, hollow-eyed; unkempt, unshaven, as she had never seen him before, he was like some caricature of the immaculate Gratton of San Francisco. He did not move but looked at her in a strange, bewildered fashion. Plainly he had had no knowledge of her being here; he could not explain her presence; he was every whit as dumbfounded as he would have been had she dropped down upon him out of the sky. Seeing that he made no attempt to move, she started to come to him. She was standing upon a rock; she stepped off into the snow, and in a flash had sunk to her breast. A cry broke from her as thus, for the first time in her life, she learned what it was to seek to force a way through deep, loose-drifted snow. Feather-light in its individual flakes, in mass it made haste impossible; to push on six inches through it was labour; to come a dozen paces to Gratton was hard work. She floundered as she had seen him flounder; she threw herself forward as he had done, and, sinking with every effort, at last reached his side.

"It's you—Gloria Gaynor!" he muttered. "But I don't understand."

"I came with Mark King. The storm caught us. Just as it caught you. But you must come with me; if you lie here you will be chilled; you will freeze. Later we can tell each other everything."

He shook his head. "I can't," he groaned. "I am more dead than alive, I tell you. I have been living through days and nights of hell; hell populated by raging demons. I have been since before dawn getting here." He cast a bleak look up along the cliffs and shuddered. "I'd rather lie here and die than attempt it."

Once more Gloria was urging and pleading. But in the end she gave over hopelessly, seeing that Gratton would not budge. And it was so clear to her that he would perish if he lay here.

"There's a hole in the cliffs just yonder," Gratton said drearily. "God knows what wild beasts may be in it. But I was going to crawl in there when you called."

Then Gloria saw for the first time the opening to that cave which in Gus Ingle's Bible had been set down as Caive number one. It was almost directly under King's cave, at the base of the cliffs. The snow came close to concealing it entirely; as it was, just a ragged black hole showed a couple of feet above the snow-line.

"Come, then," she said. "Let's see if it's big enough for a shelter. It may do as well as the other."

Gratton heaved himself up with a groan. Gloria did not wait for him, but began the tedious breaking of a path the few feet to the hole, too earnest in the endeavour even to note how Gratton came along behind without suggesting that it was the man's place to break trail. Thus Gloria came first to the lower cave. She hesitated and listened, her fancies stimulated by his suggestion of storm-driven animals, and sought to peer into the dark. She could see nothing; she heard nothing. Nothing save Gratton's hard breathing close behind her. She got a grip upon herself and made a step forward, paused, extended her arms to grope for a wall, and made another step. There was still no sound; she breathed more freely, assuring herself that save for herself the cavern was empty. She stumbled over a rock, stopped again and called to Gratton. Only now was he entering.

"Light a match," she commanded.

"My hands are dead with cold," he muttered. "I don't know if I have a match. Wait a minute."

He began a slow search. Finally she knew that he had found a match; she heard it scratch against a rock. Then she heard Gratton curse nervously; the match had broken and his knuckles had scraped along the rock.

The second match he gave to her. She struck it carefully, cupped the tiny flame with her hands, and strove to see what lay about her. The little light gave but poor assistance to her straining eyes; but she did see that there was a litter of dead limbs about her feet. She began gathering up some of the smaller branches, groping for others as her match burned out. Again Gratton searched his pockets; he found more matches and some scraps of paper. It was Gloria's hands which started the fire and placed the bits of dry wood upon it. The flames crackled; the wood caught like tinder; the flickering light retrieved much of the cavern about them from the utter dark.

"Here I stay," said Gratton. He dropped down and began warming his shaking hands. A more abjectly miserable specimen of humanity Gloria had never looked upon. He was jaded, spiritless, cowed.

But he was a human being, and she was no longer alone! Across the empty desolation he had come to her, one who had lived as she had lived, who knew another world than this, who could understand what she suffered because he, too, suffered. There came a space of time, all too brief, during which her heart sang within her. She was lifted from despair to a realm bright with hope. King had gone for succour; she had a companion to share with her the dread hours of waiting. She began a swift planning; she caught up a burning brand as she had seen Mark King do, and holding it high made a quick survey, going timidly step by step further from the entrance, deeper into the cavern. It was much like the one so high above, of what shape she could hardly guess, so many were the hollows in floor, roof, and walls, so many were the tunnel-like arms reaching further than she dared go. Gratton could not, or would not, climb to the higher cave; then why should they not make this their shelter? She would have to climb the cliffs again; but she would have to do that in any case. Once up there it would be so simple a matter to toss down blankets and food and cooking utensils; a half-hour would see her camp moved from one cave to the other. Eager and excited, she began to tell Gratton what she meant to do.

"Wait a while," he urged her. "I am terribly shaken, Gloria. I have lived through experiences which a week ago I would have thought unbearable." He shuddered; she saw that when he said he was "terribly shaken" he had not exaggerated. And in the glare of his eyes she read that, utterly unnerved, he dreaded to be left alone even while she went up the cliffs. "I would say that a man would have died—or gone mad—with the strain that I have lived through."

"I know," she said gently. "I can guess. But when you get good and warm—and rest—I will make you a hot cup of coffee——"

"I have this. It's better than coffee for me now." He untied the mouth of the bag with shaking fingers, groped through its contents, and at last brought out a flask nearly full of an amber liquid. "It's the stuff Brodie's crowd makes," he explained, unstoppering the flask. "They've got more of it than food with them, curse their bestial hearts. Stuff which, way back in ancient history, ... which means a week ago!... I'd no more have thought of drinking than I'd drink poison. But it has saved the life in me."

He put the bottle to his lips and swallowed three or four times. He sat afterward making a wry face, his full eyes blinking. But gradually a faint bit of colour made his pasty cheeks something less dead-white, and the powerful raw corn whiskey injected into his blood a little reassurance.

"Let me rest a bit and get warm?" he asked of her. "I—I'd rather you didn't leave me just yet, Gloria."

Knowing so well what it was to have raw, quivering nerves, she tried to smile at him, and saying as lightly as she could, "Why, of course; there's no hurry," began to gather what bits of wood lay about, piling them on the fire. Thus she noted where, evidently long ago, there had been another fire kindled against the wall of rock; some one else had camped here, perhaps during summer-time, and this explained the fuel wood so conveniently placed.

Meanwhile Gratton took a second pull at his flask, set it carefully aside and stood up, swinging his arms to get the blood running, beating his hands against his thighs, stamping gingerly. He began looking at her curiously. Presently he said: "Do you think we are ever going to get out of this alive?"

"Yes." Her voice rang with assurance. "Mark King has gone for help. All we have to do is wait for a few days."

His pale brows flew up.

"King? He has gone? He has left you alone here?"

Again she said: "Yes." Gratton began plucking at his lip, striding up and down now. It became obvious to her that there had been nothing wrong within him beyond what his frantic terror had done to him. Perhaps, left alone, he would have died out there in the snow; now, having already leaned on her, having her company and the hope she held out, he began to look his old self.

"Now I'll go for the things in the other cave," she suggested. And as an afterthought: "Now that you are feeling better, perhaps you will go up with me and help?"

"Why," he said, "why—of course. Yes, we'll both go."

For in his new mood, warmed by the fire and the raw whiskey, and, further, having seen that she had done the thing with no mishap, he was willing to do what before he could not do.

"Come," he said. "Let's hurry."

Along the paths they had already made it was a much easier matter to make the return trip. At the cliffs Gratton allowed Gloria to go ahead, since she knew the way up and he did not. He followed her closely, and at first with little difficulty or hesitation. The higher they climbed, however, the slower he went; once he hesitated so long that she began to believe that dizziness had overcome him and that he was coming no further. But at length she came to the ledge and the wall King had made, and Gratton, looking up and seeing her above him, began climbing again.

Gloria held aside the canvas flap; he followed her into the cave. Her fire, though low, still burned. For the sake of more light she put on more dry wood from the great heap King had left for her. She began to look about, planning swiftly just how easiest to move the few belongings which must go with her. She could pile odds and ends into a blanket; she could remake the canvas roll as King had done so often; she and Gratton could drag the bundles to the front of the cave and push them over, down the cliffs.

"First, we'll get things together, all in a heap," she said aloud.

He came forward and stood warming his nervous hands at her fire, his eyes everywhere at once. He marked the shipshape air of the cavern, the parcels which were to-night's supper and to-morrow's three poor little meals, each set carefully apart from the others on the rock shelf. He saw how the firewood was piled in its place, not scattered; how Gloria's bed and King's looked almost comfortable because of the fir-boughs; how the clean pots and pans were in their places. Then he turned his full eyes like searchlights upon the girl.

"And you," he said, marvelling, "you actually came with a man like King into a place like this!"

"I was a fool," cried Gloria. "A pitiful little fool. Oh!"

Had she been thinking less of Gloria and more of this other man with whom she was now to cope she must have marked a certain swift change in his attitude. It became less furtive, more assured. His eyes left her to rove again, lingered with the two couches, and returned to her.

"You found King wasn't your kind," he announced. "You have quarrelled!"

"From the very beginning," she replied quickly. "He is unthinkable. I would have left him long ago, only ..."

"Only there was no place to go," Gratton finished it for her. "And now," he continued slowly, studying her, "you are willing to come with me."

"Yes," she told him unhesitatingly.

"But," he offered musingly, "you refused me once and turned to him."

"Haven't I told you I was a fool? I didn't know then quite what men were ... some men."

She was not measuring every word now. She meant simply that she was determined to have done with Mark King, holding bitterly that she hated him; that she would go to any one to be definitely through with King. Yet he had time to weigh her words and draw from each one his own significance.

His eyes followed her as she gathered up her few personal and intimate possessions, comb, brush, little silken things of pale pink and blue. A faint colour seeped into the usually colourless lips at which his dead-white teeth were suddenly gnawing. When she saw the look in his eyes, she stared at him wonderingly.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice puzzled.

"What is what?" Gratton laughed, but the look was still there. His eyes did not laugh.

"What makes you look like that? What are you thinking?"

Now it was he who was vaguely puzzled. Then he shrugged.

"I was just thinking how superb you are," he replied, not entirely untruthfully. For his ulterior thought had been reared upon the vital fact of her triumphant beauty.

The compliment was too much like hundreds she had received in her life to alarm her. Rather, it pleased; what word of praise had she heard during these latter days?

His voice sounded queerly, as though his breath came with difficulty. Maybe it did, since he was no outdoors man, and to him the climb up the rocks and the brief journey along the mountain flank was a painful labour. Certain it was that the faint flush was still in the sallow cheeks. Suddenly he lifted his hands, putting them out toward her. She saw again the strange look in his eyes.

"Gloria!" he said hoarsely, "you are wonderful! And you have come to me!"

Gloria met his rather too ardent admiration with that cool little laugh which had been her weapon in other days. She was not afraid of Gratton. To-day she had led and he had followed. She had commanded and he had obeyed. Here was a pleasant change from King's masterfulness, and she fully intended to hold Gratton well in hand.

"I came to you," she said frankly, "because I was a woman in distress and had no alternative. That there has ever been any unpleasantness between us does not alter that fact. You understand me, don't you?"

He hardly heard her. To his mind the situation was clearness itself. Gloria had come alone into the forest with Mark King. She had been with him all these days and nights. But she and King had quarrelled; tired of each other already, perhaps. Gratton did not care what the reason was; he was gloatingly satisfied with the outcome. He had always coveted her; it took much to stir his pale blood, and only the superb beauty of Gloria Gaynor had ever fully done so. King had stolen her away, but she had left him and had come straight to Gratton!

He came a step closer and the firelight showed how the muscles of his throat were working. Gloria's eyes widened. But not yet did she fully understand and not yet did she fear.

"Mr. Gratton," she began.

"Gloria!" he cried out. "Gloria!"

His hands, suddenly flung out, were upon her. She tore them away, wrenched herself free from him, and started back. As she did so her little silken bundle dropped at her feet. Gratton caught it up and buried his face in it. Now as he looked up at her his eyes and all that she could see of his face were stamped with that which lay in his heart.

"Oh!" she cried, shrinking not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, my being with Mr. King...."

"No," cried Gratton wildly. "I misinterpret nothing. You came alone with him into the mountains. What chance is there for two interpretations there? You gave yourself to him; you saw your mistake; you hated him. You have come to me. I have always loved you; I want you."

Her cheeks flamed red with hot anger. There was a flutter in her heart, a wild tremor in her blood. She drew back from him. He followed, his arms out. She was amazed, for the moment shocked into consternation. And yet she knew no such terror as had been hers when King had advanced on her, rope in hand. Her new contempt of Gratton was too high for that. Now she marked the small stature, little taller, little stronger, than her own; the pale face, the narrow chest, the slender body.

"You know what I mean, what I want," he was muttering. "That sweet young-thing innocence is all right in its place but that place is not here alone in the mountains with a man."

"Man!" she burst out scathingly. "You, a man! Why, you wretched little beast!"

But Gratton, his brain reeling with hot fancy, came on.

"You were afraid of King. You said that he made you do what he wanted. What about me? You are going to do what I tell you. I ...By God, I will make you! Beast, you call me? No more beast than any other man. I have wanted you all these years. You have wanted me, or you would not have been so glad to see me. Only a few days ago you were ready to marry me! And now ..."

His arms groped for her. Gloria swept up a dead pine limb that lay by the fire and swung it in both hands and struck him full across the face. He reeled back and stood, half in the shadow, his shoulders to the rock wall, his hands to his face.

"You beast!" she panted. "You cowardly, contemptible beast."

From the way in which he brought his hand down and looked at it and laid it back upon his lips she knew that his mouth was bleeding. And she read in the gesture and in the man's whole cringing attitude that the danger of any physical violence from him was past and done with. In the grip of his passion, ugly as it was, he had risen somewhat from his essential weakness; in the moment he had at least thought of himself as a conqueror. Now he was again what he always really was at heart, a contemptible coward.

An absolutely new sense of elation sang through Gloria's blood. She was fully mistress of the situation, and had found within her an unguessed strength. Physically superb at all times because nature had richly gifted her, now she was magnificent.

"Mr. Gratton," she said swiftly, "you have made a mistake. Mr. King has never offered me violence of that sort. Remember that, though we are alone, and in the mountains, I am the same Gloria Gaynor that you have known. And be sure that you treat me as such."

He nursed his battered lips and stared at her. The blow had dazed him. Slowly, as his mind cleared, there dawned in it the realization that he had made a mistake. The stick was still in her hands; a shiver ran through him. His desire went out of him.

"I wish to God I had never seen you," he groaned.

She had meant from the first to take the upper hand. Now she was almost glad that this had happened. For now she was very sure of herself; Gratton had merely been bold like other young men who had sought to presume; he had been cruder simply because the situation seemed to his mind to offer the opportunity; now a blow from her had accomplished the work of a haughty look in drawing-room encounters with those other young men. She dropped the stick and wiped her hands.

"We have other things to think of," she said. She might have been a young queen who had punished a subject and now from her exalted place condescended to consider that the indignity offered her royal person had never occurred. She began dragging the blankets from her bed, tumbling them to the floor. "Take these," she commanded.

"I was a fool for ever leaving San Francisco," he muttered bitterly. "You let me think that you cared for me, and now you treat me like a dog. I spent time and money trying to be the one to find gold in these infernal mountains, and I find nothing but storm and starvation. I don't believe there ever was gold here."

Gold! He stopped at his own words, his eyes flying wide open. During these later hours, fleeing from Brodie's men, stumbling upon Gloria, swirled away by mad longings, he had not thought of gold. But here was King's camp; straight here had King come after Gloria had brought him her father's message and old Honeycutt's secret. Then the gold was here! The cupidity which in the man never slept long was awake on the instant. He began looking about him eagerly. King was gone? Then not for men to bring help to Gloria but to aid him in carrying off the gold. Having brought Gloria here so that she could not tell others what she knew, he left her here with the same purpose; so Gratton would have done! King would have hidden it here; at least some of it. He began questing feverishly, shuffling about in the shadows while Gloria, busy with her plans for moving, wondered at him. He was striking matches, running back and forth; she could hear his mutterings. And presently, when Gloria had called and he had not heard, he came upon the bag which King had meant to take out with him that day the horse was lost. He hovered over it; he struck other matches, he came hastening back dragging it after him.

He went down on his knees by the sack, got a heavy lump in his hands, rubbed at it, held it closer to the firelight, rubbed again more excitedly, and finally sat back, staring up at her with new flames of another sort leaping in his eyes.

"It's next thing to solid gold!" he gasped. "There are thousands—thousands——Millions!"

She looked at him and marvelled. In his shallow soul no emotion lived long; greed of gold now obliterated the little ripples that another greed had fleetingly made. How had she thought well of him down in the city? How had she so much as tolerated him? On the instant it struck her that there was small justice in Gratton reaping any reward, having done nothing to earn it. "We have the things to move. Come; hurry."

"Why should we move, after all?" he demanded sharply. "Now that I have got up here, why not stay? There's wood here; everything is fixed up after a fashion. King would know where to send for us, and—and those cursed dogs of Brodie's would never think of looking up here, even if chance did lead them along the gorge."

Gloria, recalling King's warning, remembering Brodie's brute face, said hastily:

"Do you think there is any real danger that they will come this way?"

"I hope not," he groaned. "They couldn't follow my trail if they tried to. You see, I left them last night, as early as I dared; I struck out in a straight line down the slope; then I made a turn off to the side and along the ridge where there was but little snow. By now all those tracks are wiped out, what with wind and new snow. There's nothing to lead them this way."

"Then, if we go down quickly, if we get your bag of food and put out the fire down there, and come right back up, it won't be very long before our tracks will be gone. And we'll not budge from here until help comes. Come; let's hurry."

"Coming," said Gratton. "Yes; we must hurry."

She went ahead and began to clamber down the cliffs. Half-way down she wondered why he was not following. She found a place where she could cling and look up. Thus she was just in time to see him, standing at the mouth of the cave, clutching a heavy bag; he had been tying the mouth of it. Now he cast it outward so that it fell, striking against the cliff-side, and then rolling and dropping to disappear at last in the snow-bank below. And then he began, though hesitantly, to follow her.

"That's one thing Mark King won't get," he announced with emphasis. At last he stood beside her in the snow. "No matter how the game breaks, whether he comes back or not, and no matter who gets away with the rest, that bagful is mine! There's a fortune in it, and it's mine." He began tossing double handfuls of loose snow into the hole which the bag of gold had made. "When I get a chance," he muttered, "I'll move it somewhere else."

His avarice disgusted her. Just now the thought of gold sickened.

"We are wasting time," she reminded him.

He followed her again, casting a last look behind him, then looking up at the sky, grey everywhere except for a long patch of blue.

"What we want is another three or four hours of steady snowing," he was saying when they slipped into the mouth of the lower cave. "Enough to hide that and to cover up our paths."

Gloria was already trying to put out the fire; if ill fortune should lead Brodie's crowd here, it would be just as well if they found no smouldering sticks to tell them that the fugitives had been here so short a time ago and could not be far off. She called to Gratton to help her. He stamped out burning brands while she hastened back and forth, bringing handfuls of snow with which to extinguish the last glowing coals. She worked vigorously and swiftly; he only half-heartedly, since his thoughts were elsewhere.

"Maybe," he said thoughtfully, "I'd better bring that bag in here and hide it somewhere—far back in the dark."

"No," she said. "Leave it where it is. We must hurry back to the other cave."

But he grew stubborn over it. The storm might end at any time; the sun might melt all this fluffy snow; the bag then would be for any one to see. Heedless of her expostulations, he left her extinguishing the fire and went back for the gold. He was gone several minutes, digging after it. She had finished her task when he reappeared, dragging the heavy sack after him. He disappeared swiftly, going into the deeper dark of the further end of the cave; she heard him moving with shuffling feet. What a treacherous, thieving, petty animal he was——

She started and whirled about. There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out the others; it was like a low-throated growl, ominous, sinister.

Gloria whirled again, this time toward the dark into which Gratton had gone. Blindly she hurried after him; she stumbled but kept on. She could hear him at work, hiding his gold. At last she was at his side; she clutched at his sleeve.

"Listen!" she whispered. "They are outside. They have followed you!"

She felt his arm stiffen as from head to foot he grew rigid. She heard his breath whistling through his nostrils. She could hear the beating of his heart—or was it her own? The voices came nearer, rose higher. Gratton began to shake as with a terrible chill.

"If they find me—oh, my God, if they find me—Benny killed a man he thought had the bacon—I had it all the time! My God, Gloria, if they find me——"

"Sh!" she commanded. "Be still! Maybe they will go by——"

The voices came nearer—passed on. Two or three men out there were speaking at once; then all were silent. The silence lasted so long that Gloria began to breathe again. Surely, surely Brodie and his men had gone——

Then again came Brodie's deep, sinister voice:

"Back this way, boys," he shouted. "He's gone in here. We've trapped the dirty white rat."

Gloria and Gratton clung to each other, too terrified to move.



Chapter XXVIII

Gratton, had he been left to his own devices, would have stood stock-still where he was, frozen to the ground in terror. Gloria tugged at him, whispering over and over: "They are coming! Don't you hear them? Quick! We must try to hide."

At last he seemed to awaken from a trance; he started and began hurrying with her, crowding by her, stumbling on ahead in the darkness, seeking the cave's unfathomed depths of darkness. She heard him stumble and fall; she ran blindly and caught him by the arm again, whispering fiercely:

"You must be silent! If they once hear us we have no chance. If we are still, maybe they won't find us."

After that he moved more guardedly. But still he crowded ahead; once in his excitement, when she brushed against him and he thought that she was going to get in his way, he shoved her violently aside. It was then that Gloria, looking back, saw Brodie's great bulk outlined against the snow outside. He came in; she saw his rifle; his figure was absorbed in the shadows. She saw other men following him; how many she did not know. One by one they bulked black against the daylight; one by one, as they entered, they were lost among the shadows. She had bumped into a wall of rock. Gratton was there, groping in all directions with his hands; she could hear his quick, dry breathing.

They could go no further. This was the end. Brodie called out loudly, his speech dripping with his habitual vileness; he shouted: "Gratton! Better step out lively like a man now. We got you anyway." Then he began to gather the scattered firewood; a match flared in his hand; his face leaped out of the dark like a devil's. Or a madman's, a man's mad with a rage which lusted for the killing of another man. Gloria's heart sank in despair; she felt as though she were going to faint.

But all the time her hands, like Gratton's, had been groping. At the moment when she felt that her knees were giving way under her, she found where an arm of the cave continued, narrow, slanting upward steeply, cluttered with blocks of stone. She tugged at Gratton's sleeve; she crept into this place and felt him close behind her, crowding, trying to press by her. She gave way briefly, felt him scrape past, and began crawling, following. Again only a few feet further on she came up with him again; once more he had come to the end of the tunnel. He was crouching, flattened against the rock wall. They were in a pocket with no outlet save the way they had come. She stood, turned toward the front of the cave, and waited.

"Get a fire going, boys," Brodie's rumbling bass was calling. Assured now of having run his quarry to earth, he took a wolfish joy from the moment. There was a horrible note in his laughter, booming out suddenly. "The little skunk's run to a hole; we'll smoke him out."

He spoke of Gratton as though he were a frightened animal, and like a frightened animal Gloria felt. She stooped and looked toward the pursuers; thus only could she see them, since when she stood erect the irregularities of the rocks above hid them from her.

Brodie lighted his fire. The other men—dully she counted them now; there were five of them all told—were gathering wood, heaping it on. The flames leaped, crackled, lifted their voices into a roar; volumes of white smoke shot out, thinned, were gone. The light flared higher, brighter. Dark corners and crevices were made palely fight. She could see the faces of the men now, their eyes reflecting the fire, looking like the eyes of wolves. Brodie carried his rifle as though he fully intended using it. At his side Benny Rudge fidgeted and blinked. By Benny stood that scarecrow of a man, Brail. Close by, interested spectators, were the squat Italian and the man who had brought the "judge" to marry her to Gratton, the leering Steve Jarrold.

"More fire, boys," called Brodie. Again his ugly laughter boomed out. "I think I see where he is."

Whether or not Brodie already saw them, it appeared clear that immediate discovery was inevitable. For there was no further hiding-place here to creep into; no such refuge as King had urged Gloria to hasten to if Brodie came. She remembered the caution all too late; she thought of King with wild longing, while Gratton cringed and pulled back and tried to screen his body with hers.

"Here's the grub he stole!" It was Benny's cracked, nervous voice, full of wrath.

She could feel Gratton shiver as he crouched against her. Sudden disgust filled her. They knew that he was here; they would take him in a minute; his seeking further to hide was so futile. And yet he was not man enough to stand forth at the end; he was the type who must be dragged whimpering and pulling back, pleading for mercy even when he knew so well that he deserved no mercy, and would have none meted out to him. Gratton had his one last chance to show if there was the spark of manhood in him; they did not yet know of Gloria's presence, and had he stepped out now, he might have given her a chance to remain unseen. But no such heroism suggested itself to Gratton.

"Come on, Gratton," shouted Brodie. "Or do you want me to begin shooting from here?"

The light of the fire flared higher, brighter. The eyes of the men who had just entered from the outside were growing accustomed to this place of shadows. Suddenly the man Jarrold called sharply:

"There's some one with him. There's two of 'em, Brodie. Go easy!"

Brodie cursed him for a fool.

"I don't care how many's with him or who they are," he bellowed. "The grub-stealing thief has got his coming to him. Step out, you lily-livered sneak, and take your medicine."

"That's all right," muttered Jarrold. "But it won't hurt to see who they are first, Brodie."

"Gratton's got no gun with him," cackled Benny Rudge. "Neither's that other guy. Come ahead, Steve. Me an' you'll pull 'em out."

Gloria pressed back against the rock, her flesh quivering. She saw two men and then another two coming toward her. The first sound broke from Gratton's lips now, a little gurgling moan. The men came on; one had heard and laughed. Then Gloria, with more shuddersome thought of rough hands upon her than of a rifle-ball, broke away from her cowering companion and came hastily to meet them.

"I'm coming out," she cried out to them.

It was all that she could do to hold herself erect and come back into the more open cave. Jarrold and Benny and the men after them came to a dead halt and stared at her. In the flickering half-light she looked a slim frightened boy.

"All of a sudden the woods is gettin' all cluttered up with folks," grunted Benny. "Who in blazes are you, kid? An' where's your mamma?"

His companions laughed; they laughed at anything. One of them, Steve Jarrold, came closer to look into her face. She saw that his steps were uncertain; she had heard how thick was his vocal utterance; now she smelled the whiskey with which he reeked.

A shout broke from Jarrold. He clutched her shoulder with a great claw of a hand and drew her closer to him, his face thrust down to hers.

"Let me go!" she cried, trying to jerk away from him.

"Easy does it," said Jarrold. "Easy—kid! I'm of a notion I've seen that face of yours somewheres."

"Never mind the kid," Brodie was growling savagely. "It's Gratton first. Out with him, Benny."

The others bore down upon Gratton. He had found his voice now; he shrieked at them; he begged shrilly; he battered them with his fists, striking weak, vain blows. Benny, though the smaller man, had him by the collar. The Italian caught an arm, and as they dragged him half-fainting toward the fire, Brail struck at him with a heavy boot.

"So," said Brodie heavily.

Gratton began an incoherent pleading, arrested impatiently by Brodie's great voice.

"Shut up! You've had your innings; it's mine now. You swiped grub when it's the same thing as slitting a man's gullet. You let another man be killed for what you done. Now you get yours!"

He jerked up his rifle. Benny and the Italian let Gratton go and jumped nimbly aside. Gratton stumbled and sagged, staggering like a drunken man. Brodie, with his rifle-barrel not six feet from Gratton's terror-stricken body, laughed again.

"Stop!" Gloria shrilled. She broke away from Jarrold's grasp and ran toward Brodie. "You don't know what you are doing. You——"

"Close your trap, kid," Brodie thundered at her. "Unless you want the second bullet."

Jarrold's big boots came clumping noisily across the rock floor.

"Easy does it, Brodie," he shouted. "She ain't no kid, I tell you. She's a girl. That's Ben Gaynor's girl, the one Gratton wanted to marry, the one King took away from him. Keep your eye peeled; King would be around somewhere!"

"Hidin' back there in the dark somewhere," muttered Benny.

Brodie, though his rifle had not swerved, was listening.

"No, not hiding in the dark corners," he said ponderously. "Not Mark King, rot him.... Ben Gaynor's girl, you say? Then we're red hot on the right trail, boys! You know what her and King would be after!"

Gratton's stunned brain began to function wildly.

"The gold is here, Brodie!" he cried out wildly. "King had got to it before us, but I've found it. I was coming back to tell you——"

Brodie had small liking for a coward and now his bull's voice cut Gratton's chatter short.

"No solid mountain of gold is going to save your hide——"

Benny began to jig up and down in a frenzy of excitement.

"Hold your hand, Brodie, you big fool," he shouted. He even jumped to Brodie's side and caught the rifle-barrel, shoving it downward. "If he does know where it is, give him a show to lead us to it. Ain't you got any sense? Before King gets back. If you popped him off now, how would we know where to look?"

Brodie snarled at Benny and whipped the rifle clear of the nervous clutch. But he understood what Benny had in mind and saw wisdom in obeying the command to hold his hand. His gross, heavy-muscled face, half in light, half in darkness, showed a look of hesitation. Gratton began a rapid, vehement talking, explaining, arguing, pleading; he had not meant to steal the food; he could lead them to the gold; he wanted none of it; all that he asked was to be allowed to live——

"Shut up!" Brodie cried again disgustedly. "You ain't dead yet, are you? So's you keep your lying face closed I'll give you one show. Step lively; where is it?"

Gratton, like a hound in leash suddenly freed, turned and sped toward the spot where he had hid the gold. Brodie, his rifle shifting in his hands, leaped after him, keeping close to him. Gratton was down on his hands and knees, scratching among the loose stones like a dog digging for a buried bone. Brodie put a heavy hand on his shoulder and jerked him back, hurling him to one side. Thus it was Brodie who found the bag and dragged it forward to the fire, dumping its contents on the ground. Benny was with him now, pawing over the heavy lumps. Brail, the Italian, Steve Jarrold—all rushed forward and snatched up bits of the ore that had rolled from the sack; one of them shouted in wonder; another seized the nugget from his hands; they all talked at once; Benny squealed in high rage as Jarrold shoved him backward; the Italian trod in the fire and cursed and kicked at it savagely, sending burning brands in all directions.

Gloria had stood powerless to move. Now she saw that in their flush of excitement no one was looking toward her. She began slowly, silently, edging toward the side of the cave, toward the way out. Her one thought was to slip away while none noted her; to dart out and hurry up the cliff to come to the hiding-place of which Mark King had told her.

"I never see such gold, and me an old-timer in the mines." It was Steve Jarrold muttering. "It's like they'd took clean gold down to the mint and rolled it and lumped it into nuggets. This was broke off the mother lode. Oh, my Gawd!"

Gloria made another quiet step—and another. Still no one saw her. If she could only make half a dozen more steps before these men awoke from the first moments of a spell that had made them oblivious of everything on earth except that little heap of rock! Another step; she went quicker; their backs were toward her. And still no one saw. Yes, Gratton alone had seen. She made a quick frightened gesture. His jaw sagged open; he watched her with bulging eyes. She could read his thought so plainly: he was thinking of his own ultimate chances for life, he was screwing up his courage to make a dash for the open himself. His eyes followed her step by step. Oh, if only he would look in some other direction! If any one of them saw Gratton's tell-tale face——

Then Gratton began a slow withdrawal from the others; he meant to do as he saw her doing.

"Heavy laka hell," the Italian was saying. "Justa da gold do that!"

"Give me that, Tony," snarled Brodie. He snatched the mass from the other's hands. "That's the biggest nugget any man living ever saw."

Gloria tasted the clean fresh outside air; she was within three paces of the line of snow. Then there was a sudden noise; Gratton, inching off backward, had stumbled over a dead stick. The men by the fire were startled out of their oblivion. Steve Jarrold, the one nearest Gloria, swung about, saw her, dropped what was in his hands, and lunged towards her. She made a dash for the exit. In two great strides Jarrold was upon her and had caught her by the shoulders, dragging her back. And Gratton stood again, his feet glued to the ground; she could see the flash of his teeth gnawing at his fingers.

"Trying to make a sneak for it!" boomed Brodie. "I'll show you——"

"Not yet, Brodie, you big fool!" yelled Benny. "This is only a sackful, and not full at that. It's the rest of it we're after—the whole lousy mess. He's got to show us where this come from."

"I am not trying to get away," said Gratton, though his tone did not convince. "Haven't I made good already? Haven't I kept my promise? Am I not ready to do whatever I can?"

"Talk's cheap," retorted Brodie. "Get busy, then."

Gratton, struggling already in the meshes of the net drawing ever tighter about him, pointed to Gloria with shaking finger. He swallowed twice and moistened his lips to speak.

"King found it first. She was with him. I made her show me the sack of gold. I was going to go back to your camp, to tell you——"

"Cut it," commanded Brodie. "Leave out the lies and talk straight and fast. Where is the rest of it? Where did this come from?"

"I'm trying to tell you," said Gratton hurriedly. "There—there's another cave; up above. That's where King had his camp; that where's I got the sack. It's up there——"

"No wonder she wanted to skip out," jeered Steve Jarrold, his great bony hand locked about Gloria's shrinking shoulder. His ill-featured face, the small, pig eyes, always jeering, the black bristle of beard, not unlike a hog's bristles, were thrust close to her face. "Where's King all this time?" he demanded. "Up in the other cave, maybe?"

"No," she said dismally, seeking to jerk away from his evil glance and whiskey-laden breath. "He has gone——"

"That's good; let him go. We don't care, do we? Eh, girlie?" But again his hand tightened until the hard fingers hurt her. "But gone where?"

"We were short of food—he is hunting—maybe he has gone for help——"

"And you showed Gratton where he hid his gold? That's a nice little she-trick, ain't it? Well, while the showing's good, lead us to the rest of it."

"That's the eye, Steve," said Brodie. He stepped forward, shoved his rifle-muzzle against Gratton's body, and commanded: "You, too. Go ahead, you and her, and show us the way. And no monkey business, either of you, or I'll blow a hole square through you."

Gratton, grown nimble, darted ahead with Brodie always close at his heels. Gloria, forced on by Jarrold, came next, and after them the others. Benny was the last; he had taken time to put the gold back into the sack and set it aside among the shadows. For Benny believed in making sure of what they had, even while they quested better things. Then he caught up his rifle, the only other gun besides Brodie's, and came hurrying after them.

They went up the cliff in a long file, clawing their way, cursing the steepness, now and then one or another of them fumbling uncertainly, close to a slip and a fall. It was clear that, with the possible exception of Swen Brodie, not a man of them was entirely sober. But they made the climb safely and hastened into the upper cave eagerly.

"It's somewhere back there," said Gratton.

"More fire," shouted Brodie. His voice exulted; his blood would be running now with the gold fever. He tossed on an armful of dry wood; the flames caught and roared; shadows quivered and danced. Already Benny was at the far end of the cave; the others ran after him. Even Jarrold relinquished Gloria's arm, eager to be in at the finding. But he called to her as he went:

"You stick where you are. I'm not forgetting you this time."

Fascinated, she watched them. They ran like blood-lusting dogs that had briefly lost their quarry, that were seeking everywhere, in every cranny, with slavering jaws. They turned aside into side-pockets of the main cavern; they got torches and looked high and low; they went back and forth, up and down; they stumbled against one another and cursed angrily; they caught up bits of stone, ran back to the fire to see if the fragments were shot with gold; cursed and hurled the useless things from them, and ran back again, to jostle and seek and be first; they were not so much like dogs now as human hogs, fighting to get first into the trough.

But they did not forget Gratton, and they did not forget Gloria. All the time both Brodie and Benny kept their guns in their hands; two significant looks had been all that was needed to keep their two prisoners in mind of the fact that no escape now was possible.

To Gloria it seemed inevitable that in this quest which overlooked nothing, and which as time wore on grew less frenzied and more systematic, they would find what King had found before them. She tried to think consecutively; she recalled all that King had told her of these men, all that Gratton had hinted at. She recalled with a shudder the look in the moist eyes of Steve Jarrold. It seemed to her that her only slim chance for safety lay in their finding the gold. For only gold, gold unlimited, could cause them to forget her.

For an hour they sought tirelessly. It appeared that there were many fingers to the further end of the cave, narrow, irregular channels into which they pressed. Their faggots burned out; the smoke choked them; they coughed and cursed, came out for fresh air, dived into the dark again. The short day was passing; the entering light, where they had torn the canvas aside, grew dimmer. And still they searched.

At last Brodie returned and stood looking from Gloria to Gratton.

"One of you knows," he said shortly. "Which one?"

"I swear to God——" began Gratton.

"Shut up! Then it's you?" The little, shiny blue eyes, never so coldly evil, drew her own frightened eyes, fascinated and held them. "You know"

"I don't know! All I know——"

"Don't lie to me! It'll do you no good." He lifted a hand and held it over her, the enormous fingers apart and rigid. "I'll make you tell!"

"Listen to me," she managed to cry out. "I don't know, I tell you. But I know where it might be. In a place you would never think of looking. Not in a thousand years——"

Blue fire sprang up in the gleaming eyes. The other men, drawn close, watched and listened, their eyes alive with many lights.

"What you know I'll know. I'll choke it out of you——"

"I'll tell you—if you will keep your hands off me! I'll make a bargain with you. I'll show you the place; if there's gold there, I don't care what happens to it—if you'll only agree to let me alone—to let me go——"

Brodie laughed at her. But Benny cried out:

"Of course we'll let you go! What do you suppose we want of you? Once we get our hands on it she can go, Brodie. Tell her so, you big——"

"Sure," said Brodie, with a wide grin. "It ain't women we're after this trick; it's something better. And—and it would be very nice of you to show us—Miss Gaynor." He treated her to a grinning mock respect, so obviously spurious that her fear of him rose higher, choking her. "Very nice, ain't it, boys?"

"I—I am not sure what you'll find," whispered Gloria. "I only know that——Oh, dear God, I hope you find all the gold in the world!"

Hastily she ran by Brodie toward the dark end of the cave. Then she stopped and tried to think; how many paces had King said? She came back to the fire; thirty, thirty-five? She began counting as she walked while they watched her wondering and following slowly after her. She found several boulders in her path; but she had not gone far enough. She kept on; thirty, thirty-two, thirty-three——She could hardly see about her. She stumbled against a rock in her way.

"Try here," she said. Already Brodie and Steve Jarrold were at her side. "This rock. See if it will move——"

They thrust her roughly aside. Brodie set down his rifle, laid his big hands on the boulder, and as if it had weighed only ten pounds, tossed it out of the way. He knelt, feeling along the ground. A sudden shout burst from him:

"Down here! There's a big hole; there's a dark cave underneath. That's where it is?"

They brought faggots; at the edge of the hole they hastily built another fire. They crowded round, peering down. Brodie tossed a brand through; it dropped a short distance, a few feet only, struck, and began to roll; it caught against a rock, smoked and smouldered, and went out. Brodie set his legs over the opening, called to the Italian to grab his rifle and keep an eye on Gloria and Gratton, and went down. The others crowded about the hole, waiting impatiently for him to go through, and then began piling down after him. Gloria could see their figures dimly; they went down and down along a long, steep, slanting passage-way; they had smoking torches and looked like so many fiends in the bottomless pit. She heard them calling back and forth excitedly; they went on, still downward; she heard their grinding boot-heels, but could no longer see them. Suddenly they were silent. Then there were swift mutterings. And then a great, triumphant, many-voiced shout. In Gus Ingle's treasure-cache they had at last come to Gus Ingle's treasure. And, among other things, to the skeleton of Gus Ingle himself, sprawling here for sixty years in the dark over a great heap of gold.



Chapter XXIX

Swen Brodie, whose will had at all times directed, was now absolute dictator. Big and brutal and fearless, drunken with gold, he loomed above his companions, driving them, commanding them, swearing violently that they would do what he told them to do or he'd dash their brains out.

"I led you to it," he reminded them in a great shouting voice. "But for me never a man of you would of smelled it. There's enough here to make a thousand men rich, and that's lucky for you! But we've got to hold what we got, and we got to get out of here with it—somehow. That somehow is for me to figure out. And, being as one man's got to run any job and the rest has got to take orders and take 'em on the jump, you're doing what I say! If any man jack of you don't like that, let him open his head right now!"

"There's no sense scrappin'," muttered Benny. "An' we're all satisfied, I'd say. But there's no call to start wavin' a red flag."

"We're going down to the lower cave," said Brodie. "Everything we can pry loose is going down with us. We'll pitch the loose chunks of gold over the cliff and we'll stow 'em away somewhere else—where King, if things break some way we don't look for, won't find 'em! We start right now, while there's daylight. What's more, we move our camp from down the canon to the cave below. Steve Jarrold, you and Tony are elected to that job, and you'd better get a move on. Bring up what grub's left, and the blankets and stuff. The rest of us will start in firing gold overboard and putting it somewhere more safe—all that's loose. And at that, think of the great, big, wide, yellow, rotten-soft seam of it down below!"

"Where are you goin' to put it?" demanded Jarrold.

"Not hiding it from you and Tony, Steve," cried Brodie sharply. "Put your suspicious ways in your pocket. And, if you're on the jump, you'll have our camp truck moved before we're done. Look alive, will you? A man never knows what's going to happen."

"Why not leave it here until we know——?"

"For one thing, because Mark King knows this place. Now, move! Come ahead, you other fellows. You, too, Gratton; we ain't forgot you." An uglier note crept into the harsh voice. "You can help. And so can you," whirling on Gloria. "Woman or no woman, you got hands and feet."

* * * * *

Night, pitch-black, had come when they had done. Gloria, scarcely able to stand from exhaustion, her body bruised, her hands and arms wounded from many a jagged rock as she had gone back and forth carrying heavy loads, went with the others into the lowest cave in which already the gold had been stowed away. She sank down wearily; she closed her eyes rather than watch the men about their fire, eating noisily, drinking noisily from the bottles which Steve and Tony had brought from their other camp. Trying to remain unnoticed in the shadows was Gratton. Brodie, having commanded that a rude rock wall like King's be built across the mouth of the cave to shut out the cold, and having laboured with the others at the task, came back to the fire. He took a long pull at a bottle, emptying it and smashing it to tinkling fragments as he hurled it behind him. He caught up a big piece of dried beef and gnawed at it like a dog; though Gloria kept her eyes away from him she could hear the tearing and grinding of the monstrous teeth.

"It's been a day's work, at that," he said with a full mouth. "But we ain't done. I noticed how no man has said a word about how we split what we found."

"There's five of us," said Benny quickly. "We split it five ways, even, like pardners."

Brodie turned on him slowly, still rending at his meat, still clutching his rifle and holding it so that no man might forget that he held it.

"Think so, Benny?" he said ponderously. "Being as I've worked on this lay a long time, since I let you others in on it, since I led you to it—think that's the fair way to split it? Now suppose you listen to me. You boys ain't mentioned a split because it was none of your say and you knew it. Say, in round numbers—but there's ten times that—that there's a million dollars tucked away here. Why, there's mines all through these mountains that never thought of stopping at a million; that was just a fair start! Well, to get going, say there's an even million. I get just half that; that leaves half a million, don't it? Now, shut up a minute!" he commanded truculently as more than one man stirred. "Listen to me. That's five hundred thousand to split between four of you; that's over a hundred thousand for every man jack of you. And that's what I call a fair split."

They growled in their throats at that, but no man took it upon himself to speak out definitely, though they glanced sidewise among themselves. Benny, who always had a thought of his own, said quietly:

"What are you doin' about Gratton? He'll claim his share, won't he? And, if you say him no, he'll shoot his face off, won't he?"

"No," said Brodie. "He won't." He paused, swallowed the last of his beef, caught up a bottle from Benny's side, and drank deeply. Benny, afraid that this bottle, too, still nearly full, would be broken, hastily snatched it back when Brodie had done.

"No," said Brodie heavily. "Gratton won't talk." He grew suddenly quick-spoken—he broke into a volley of accusation; his tongue lent itself to such a rush of vileness that Gloria, shrinking back, covered her ears with her hands. "Gratton stole grub. When grub-stealing was the same as slitting a man's throat. And what next does he plan? Why, to make trouble; to swear that Benny killed a man; that we was all in it; to get us all hung, if he can, or in the pen; then to grab what's ours. Look at him. You can see it in his frog eyes! He's done, that's what he is!" With a swift gesture his gun was at his shoulder.

Gratton scrambled to his feet with a choking cry. Gloria, too, had sprung up, sick with horror. She looked from Brodie to Gratton, who was not two feet from her. She saw that he was panic-stricken; his fear was choking him, stopping his heart, paralysing his muscles. He wanted to run and could not; he tried to speak but now not even a whisper came from between his writhing lips.

Slowly, an unshaken, senseless piece of machinery, Brodie raised his rifle. Now Gratton's voice returned to him; a strangling cry broke from his agonized soul. A hand, wildly outthrown, caught at Gloria's sleeve.

"You, there," called Brodie, "stand aside. Unless you're wanting yours too!"

Her own heart was stopping, her feet were leaded. She understood what he said—she knew that it was to her that he spoke—but she wouldn't believe, couldn't believe that he meant—that!

Gratton was pressing tight to Gloria, seeking futilely to get behind her. He began to articulate—to beg—to promise——

Brodie fired. A great reverberating roar filled the cavern. Gloria, her brain gone suddenly numb, felt the grip on her arm tighten convulsively. Then it relaxed—slowly. Gratton, his eyes bulging, his mouth wide open, was sinking——

Gloria put her hands over her eyes and screamed. Again and again her scream broke from her. She tried to draw back, to run. But all her strength was gone. She crumpled and settled down almost as Gratton had done, and so close to him that she brushed him with her knee. She felt the body twitch. She leaped to her feet and ran blindly, screaming. She struck against the rock wall and sank down again.

The wonder was that she did not swoon outright. As it was, her soul seemed to float dizzily out of her body and through an utter dark. She thought that she was dying. As though across a vast distance she heard voices.

"Well?" It was the man who had done the shooting, his voice truculent. "Anybody got anything to say? Say it quick, if you have."

There was a silence. Then a shuffling of feet. Then an answering voice, thin and querulous. It was Benny; he, too, had killed his man.

"He had it coming," he said eagerly. "Any judge would say so. Stole every bit of grub when stealing grub is the same as cutting a man's throat, just like you said, Brodie. He had it coming. You done right."

"You, Jarrold," demanded Brodie. "Got anything to say?"

Again silence. Then again a voice, Jarrold's, saying hurriedly:

"No. Benny's right. He had it coming. Damn fool."

"And you, Brail? And you, Tony? Got anything to say? Talk lively!"

Brail and Tony, like the others before them, were quick to excuse Brodie's act. They spoke briefly and relapsed into silence. Then, beginning far away and coming closer with the speed of an onrushing hurricane, Gloria heard heavy feet crunching in the dirt and gravel. A hard hand gripped her shoulder, jerking her to her feet.

"You, friend," said Brodie. "What have you got to say about it?"

She hung limp in his powerful hand, speechless.

He dragged her closer to the firelight, peering at her with his red-flecked eyes.

"Don't forget who she is," another voice was saying. Steve Jarrold's. "Remember what I told you."

It was as though he prided himself on the fact that he alone knew her for Gaynor's daughter, and from it derived a sort of ownership of her; for while the others had never caught a glimpse of her until now, he had filled his eyes with her before. "We got to think this out. She came along with King. Got enough of him and switched to Gratton. That's like a woman."

Brodie let her slip down and turned away from her. His mood was not so soon for a woman.

"See she keeps her mouth shut," he said threateningly. "If she ain't got sense enough for that she ain't got sense to go on living."

Benny stooped and feasted his eyes on her. Then, straightening up, he turned to Jarrold with nodding approval.

"She skins anything I ever saw," he admitted.

In some strange way it seemed to Gloria that both Benny and Brodie had consigned her to Jarrold as though they admitted his prior claim; as though, among these three, she was looked upon as the property of one. She struggled to her feet.

"Don't let her go," said Brodie. "That's all I got to say about her right now."

She made an uncertain step toward the mouth of the cave. Jarrold moved at her side. She went faster. He put his hand on her.

"Didn't you hear what he said?" he asked.

She tried to break away and run. He held her One clear thought and only one formed in her mind. As she had never longed for anything in her life, she yearned for Mark King.

"Mark!" she screamed, "Mark King! Save me."

Jarrold clapped a big dirty hand over her mouth. He put a wiry arm about her and lifted her and carried her back to the fireside.

"None of that," he growled in her ear. She shrank away as she felt the tensing of his arm and was conscious of the contact of his rag-clothed body. She grew silent, cowering. She heard a sound of something dragging and could not hide her fascinated eyes. Thus she watched as Brodie gripped the slack of Gratton's coat shoulders and shoved the body out into the snow. She even marked how the living man spat after the dead.

"Go to the coyotes," he muttered. "They're your kind."

Gloria knew that if she took a step Jarrold would clutch her again. So she stood very still. Brodie came back and threw some wood on the fire and squatted down over the provisions, seeming to be taking stock of them. Perhaps he was but strengthening his heart, digesting the evidence of the case, assuring himself again after the accomplished fact that the deed was just. Still squatting, he drank again, this time from the bottle which had been Gratton's. As he tilted it up she saw that it was two-thirds full. When he put it down with a long sigh and wiped his wet mouth it was not over half-full. He brooded over the fire, he gave no sign of noticing her.

"Let me go," she said to Jarrold. "I am sick. I'd die here. Please let me go."

Jarrold shifted and looked to his companions. Benny shook his head.

"There ain't no hurry," he stated judicially. "What sort is she, Steve?"

"She come up to Gaynor's place along with Gratton," answered Jarrold as though he knew all about her. "He was crazy gone on her, crazy enough to want to marry her, even. Sent me for the judge. Then Mark King showed up. She fell for him and gave Gratton the go-by. Then she comes into the mountains with King, I guess. Next she gets tired of him and goes back to Gratton."

"'Frisco woman?" asked Benny.

Jarrold nodded. Benny clacked his tongue. Brodie still brooded at his fire, his eyes sullen upon the fitful flame and red embers.

"Where is King?" asked Brodie.

"Where is King?" repeated Jarrold to Gloria.

"I don't know," she answered, speaking with difficulty. "I ... Oh, for God's sake, let me go. I won't say anything about what I saw; I promise. If you will only let me go."

"They promise easy and break promises easier," said Jarrold.

Benny came up and touched Brodie on the shoulder. The squatting man started and scowled. Benny stooped and whispered. Brodie got up heavily and together the two withdrew, going further back in the cave. They talked, but Gloria could not catch the words. She saw the flare of one match after the other as they fell to smoking; the smell of strong tobacco came to her. She looked appealingly to Jarrold. He sidled closer, standing between her and the open.

"I'll pay you a thousand dollars when I get back to San Francisco," she whispered eagerly. "Ten thousand! If you'll let me go now."

Jarrold pondered, his stupid little eyes steady and unwinking on her.

"A thousand dollars," he returned slowly, "wouldn't do me any good if I never got it: as I wouldn't if none of us got clear of this damn' snow; neither would ten I And it wouldn't do me any good if Benny and Brodie shot me full of lead. And it wouldn't be much, anyhow, if we got away with what we found to-day! Everything being as it is, I ain't half as strong for a thousand dollars, nor yet ten, right now as I am for you! And you know it, don't you?"

He tried to ogle her, and her sick dread nearly overwhelmed her.

"And you got sense, too," went on Jarrold, leering meaningly. "It won't be bad to have a man stuck on you that's got all kind of kale, will it, girlie?"

As he poured out his wretched insinuations she was trembling; in her heart she thought that she had spoken truly and would die if they kept her here.

"I am married. To Mr. King," she said as steadily as she could. "I want to go to him. You have no right to keep me here."

"But you don't even know where he is," Jarrold reminded her slyly.

Brodie and Benny had given over their whispering and came back to the fire, where Brail and the Italian looked up at them sharply. Here was another guarded conference among the four; Gloria, though she could watch them, was unable to hear what they were saying. Jarrold began to grow uneasy, so soon is distrust bred amongst those who have found treasure.

Brodie made a last remark and laughed; the others laughed after him, and the four looked toward Jarrold and Gloria. Brodie, leaning back, caught up a bottle and drank, and thereafter passed the bottle to the man nearest him. Gloria was quick to see that he had set his rifle away somewhere against the rock wall in the shadows. Only Brail still clung to his gun; if he should set it aside—if there should come a moment when she could slip to the cave's mouth—in the outside dark, despite the deep snow, she would at least have a chance to escape from them. Even though she had nowhere to go, she longed wildly to be away from them. When their eyes roved toward her she thought that she would rather be dead, out in the clean, white snow, than here.

She wondered if these men were as utterly callous as they seemed. Gratton, so newly dead, appeared forgotten. They laughed and drank, they smoked and spat, they soiled her with their eyes and their talk, quite as though they had neither knowledge nor memory of manslaughter done. Benny alone, for a brief period, appeared nervous. She wondered what he was doing; he had rolled back his coat-sleeve; he was jabbing at his bare forearm with something which now and then caught and reflected the firelight. After a long time she heard a long sigh from Benny; he pulled down his coat-sleeve. The others laughed again.

"It's time we had a little talk," said Brodie out of a short silence. "Without anybody's skirt listening in. Leave her back there, further from the front door, Jarrold. Where she can't get an earful, and where she can't make a getaway; you come on over here a minute."

Gloria made no resistance but sank down limply where Jarrold left her and watched him as he slouched over to the fire. She sought to hear their words, to read the looks on their faces. But she caught only a monotonous mutter, unintelligible but evil, and saw only the bottle passing from one to the other. Brodie finished it and hurled it from him so that it broke noisily. A few times she heard them laugh; she could distinguish Brodie's throaty, bull tone and Benny's nervous cackle. Jarrold did not appear made for mirth, and him she feared most of all; yes, even more than Brodie, whom she had seen do murder, and Benny who, she knew, had done murder. Brail and the Italian said little; they were men to follow where other men led. She fancied that several times Steve Jarrold's little eyes left the bottle, the faces of his companions, and even the pile of gold to quest for her face in the dark.

"Come here," commanded Brodie.

She started. He was calling to her! She got up and moved forward slowly. It was obey or be dragged to him. In the pale light by the fire, standing so that the blaze was between the five men and herself, she stopped. Until now she had been very white; suddenly she knew that her face must be flooded with bright red; she could feel the burn of it. The eyes of the men seemed veritably to disregard her clothes, to make her feel another Lady Godiva.

"Gratton's, then King's, then Gratton's again?" Brodie chuckled. "I don't care whose before Gratton's the first time; but whose after Gratton's the last time, that's it! Who are you for, Bright-Eyes? Me or Steve?"

"No!" she cried, her hands at her breast. "No! I am not like that! I was not Gratton's; I am ... I am Mark King's wife!"

"So?" admitted Brodie good-humouredly. "Well, that cuts no ice; it's open and shut you'd gone back to Gratton. Now, come over here. Closer."

"I won't," she shuddered. "You don't dare make me! I ... Oh, won't you let me go? You have your gold there; you have gold and whiskey; you don't want me...."

"Whiskey, gold, and women," muttered Brodie. "They go together fine. And quit that little schoolgirl dodge; you make me sick. If you wasn't what you are, you wouldn't be where you are. Come over here and give us a kiss." He jerked from his pocket a dull lump, one of the smaller, richer nuggets. "I'm no pincher; come across and I'll give you a whole handful of gold!" His tone was playful.

But Jarrold cut in less playfully:

"Leave her alone, Brodie," he advised. "She don't cotton to you, and, what's more, whose gold is it, anyhow? We ain't divided yet. And she.... Well, if she belongs to anybody, she's mine!"

"So?" Brodie's monosyllable was expressionless. "Well, I was asking her. And she ain't answered yet."

Fast as the girl's heart beat, her thoughts sought to fly faster. These men were brutes; here she began, and, alas, here she ended. She had never known what brute meant; she had called Mark King that! And now, if only Mark King could hear her call, could come to her.... But that was less thought than prayer. These were brute beasts; their bestiality when they had first come upon her was terrifying; now, as the alcohol burned in their half-starved stomachs and the further intoxication of gold crept into their blood, her terror was boundless. In a moment she would feel upon her either the hands of Brodie or the hands of Jarrold. And she was helpless and hopeless. Until, since life connotes hope, there came a faint flicker of light. And with it came a sudden, compelling, swift longing. If she might set them to quarrelling over her, to send a snarling man at a snarling man's throat.... Her hands dropped to her sides, and were clenched; she lifted her chin; with all that strength that lay in the innermost soul of Gloria King she strove to drive her great fear out of her eyes, to hide it from their wolfish regard, to summon up in its stead a mocking inscrutability. There was but one thing left to do, but one part to play——Oh, God, if she could play the part! She stood motionless, silent; she battled with herself; she struggled mightily for a calm utterance. And in the end she said in a tone which she managed to make full of challenge:

"Which of you is the better man?"

They stared at her, all of them puzzled by her change of attitude as by her words. Then Brodie, with a noisy explosion of laughter, smote his thigh and, after him, Benny giggled foolishly.

"The better man!" Brodie shouted. "Hear her, Steve, old horse? The better man!" He lunged to his feet; he stood solidly, unswerving though more than ever slow and ponderous. "I'll go you, Steve. The lady's right; she goes to the man who's man enough to get her. That's big Swen Brodie, the best man in these mountains! I'll go you for her, Steve. By God, she's worth it, too."

But Steve Jarrold sat where he was, glaring.

"She's sly," he grunted, cursing before and after. "Can't you see what she's up to? She wants us to fight one another; she'd be glad if we both killed one another. You don't understand women, Brodie; they're sly like cats."

"Make a auction out'n it!" was Benny's mirthful suggestion. "Why just you two guys, anyway? Where do you get that stuff? Free for all, that's what I say!" He waved his bottle. "Auction her off, that's what I say! I'll give a bottle of whiskey for her; hey, Brodie?"

Brodie had laughed when Jarrold spoke; he laughed now. But he looked to Jarrold and not Benny as he spoke; he extended his great hands, the fingers crooked, curving slowly inward, like steel hooks.

"I can eat you alive, and you know it, Steve," he mocked. "What's more, she knows it! That's what she wants; she's picked me, Steve! That's just her way of letting you down easy; she don't aim to hurt your feelings. Will you come on and take a fall for her? Or is the lady mine? What's the word? Speak up, man!"

Gloria saw that Jarrold, though he sent a black, scowling look at the bigger man, was afraid. And yet they must fight—they must be driven to blows—she must somehow set them at each others' throats. It was so hard to think at all! Yet she could think forward to one occurrence only that could give her respite and a frail chance for freedom: if they would only fight as, in some dim instinctive way, it was given her to understand that such men would fight once a wrathful blow had been given and taken—if the others would only watch them and not her, if she could come to one of the rifles—or outside——

She turned to Jarrold. She gathered herself for the final supreme effort. She made her eyes grow bright through sheer force of will; she made her lips cease trembling and curve to a smile at the man; she even concealed her loathing and put a ringing note, almost of laughter, into her voice as she said softly:

"I know you are not afraid—and I think—yes, I am sure, that you could whip him!"

Steve Jarrold's eyes flashed. Then they left hers lingeringly; Brodie was stamping impatiently, calling to him.

"Take her!" snapped Jarrold. "Hell take both of you."

The laughter and challenge went out of Swen Brodie's bloodshot eyes; a new red surged all of a sudden into them. He turned and came slowly about the fire, his arms still uplifted, the crooking fingers toward Gloria.



Chapter XXX

Scream after scream burst from Gloria's lips; taut nerves seemed to snap all through her body like over-stressed violin strings. She ran, ran anywhere, ran blindly. She ran into Benny, who clutched at her; she fled away from him, back toward the darker end of the cave. The low rumble of a man's laughter answered her; drunken laughter from Brodie. Whether drunk with whiskey or with gold or with lust did not matter; drunk he was. Gloria's shriek rose like a madwoman's; Brodie's thick laughter was its sinister echo. Another man called out something; the slow, heavy feet of Swen Brodie were following, following. Boots scuffling, Brodie pursuing with a wide, patient grin; he was in no hurry, he was so sure of her!

His hands were almost on her. Gloria whipped aside and ran again. He kept between her and the front of the cave; with all of his grinning patience he was as watchful as a cat. She was driven back and back, deeper and deeper into the narrowing tunnel. He came on. He would be upon her in another half-dozen slow, ponderous strides. She could not pass him; she could not dart forward and out; his arms were widely extended on either side. He was expecting that. She could only save herself from him second by second—and the seconds were running out swiftly.

She prayed to God in wild passionate supplication. She prayed for sudden death, death before those horrid, crooked fingers touched her. But while she prayed to God it was of Mark King that she thought. And Mark King, because of her usage of him, was miles and miles away, so far that her despairing shrieks died without penetrating one-millionth part of the empty wastes across which he had trudged. And still she drew back and back and still she prayed for the miracle as she had done that day when she had seen King coming toward her with a rope in his hand, prayed for the earth to split asunder, for a flame to leap out and consume the beast crowding closer upon her—to consume him or herself.

At last she was at the end. The end of the passage-way, the end of hope. Brodie came on, his arms out. She could hear him breathing. She could smell the whiskey he reeked with.... Beyond him she saw Jarrold squatting by the fire; Brail leaning on his rifle, guarding the entrance; Benny and the Italian lounging in the shadows. Figures of hell, watching Brodie's actions with aloof interest ...Brodie made the last step; she felt his hand on her arm, closing, drawing her forward; the last agonized shriek burst from her....

"Oh, God—oh, dear God——"

She did not hear and Brodie did not hearken to a sudden new sound in the cave grown suddenly still; the sound of a cascade of loose stones. They came with a rush, they piled up near the middle of the open cave, dropping from the shadowy rock roof above. But Benny, always on nerve edge, shrilled:

"Look out! A cave-in"

She heard—God had heard——Better crushed under a falling mountain than in those brute arms.

And then she saw. From ten feet above, straight down dropped something else. Taut nerves of those who saw fancied it a great boulder falling. But no boulder this, which, striking the little pile of rocks, became animated, rose, whirled, and——

"Mark!" screamed Gloria. "Mark!"

Turned to stone, incredulous of their eyes, bewildered beyond the power to move, were those who saw. It was Brail who first understood, Brail the one man with a gun in his hands. He whipped it up and began firing, nervous and excited. It was after the second shot that King's rifle answered him; it roared out like the crash of doom in Gloria's ears; she saw the stabbing spurt of fire. Brail sagged where he stood, crumpled and pitched forward, his rifle clattering loudly against the rocks.

But by now the brief stupor that had locked the other men in staring inaction was gone. Gloria saw figures leaping forward; she knew that Brodie's hands had relinquished her; she saw Brodie bearing down on King, roaring inarticulately as he went; she saw Benny and Jarrold and the Italian bearing down upon him; King was in the midst of all that. They were upon him before Brail's head had struck the ground. They gave him no time, no space for another shot. He swept his clubbed rifle high over his head; she heard the blow when he struck, the hideous sound of a crushing skull. A man went down, she did not know which one. Only it was not Mark—thank God it was not Mark King!

And now King had a little room and an instant of his own as two other men swerved widely about the falling figure. He fired again, not putting the rifle to his shoulder. Another man fell, lay screaming, rolled aside—was forgotten.

"Where's my rifle?" Brodie was yelling.

He couldn't find it in the dark; he couldn't stop to grope for it. But Gloria knew; she remembered. She ran for it, found it, straightened up with it in her shaking hands.

Again King was using his weapon as a club, since they pressed him so closely. Again came that terrible sound; Steve Jarrold it was who went down. And with it another sound, that of hard wood splintering. The rifle was broken over his head, the stock whirled close to Gloria, King had only the short heavy steel barrel in his hands.

Benny had circled to the far side; Brodie had caught up a great thick limb of wood. They were coming at King from two sides at once.... Gloria tried to aim, pulled the trigger, tugging frantically. Only then she remembered to draw the hammer back; it was Brodie's ancient rifle and she struggled to get it cocked. She shuddered at the report. The bullet sang in front of Benny, and he stopped dead in his tracks. He was near the cave's mouth. Gloria pointed, forgot the hammer remembered, got the gun cocked and fired again. Benny plunged wildly forward; she did not know if she had hit him. He hurled himself headlong toward the narrow exit and through.

She had forgotten Brodie and King! She turned toward them. She did not dare shoot now; King was in the way. He moved aside as if he understood her trouble; Brodie, grown unthinkably quick of foot, moved with him. Brodie, too, understood. She saw him leap in and strike. The blow landed, a glancing blow. King seemed to have grown tired; he moved so slowly. But he did move and toward Brodie; he swung his clubbed rifle-barrel and beat at Brodie's great face with it. Beat and missed and almost fell forward. Again Brodie struck; again King beat at him. They moved up and down, back and forth; Brodie was cursing under his breath, and at last jeering. King was moving more and more slowly; his left arm swung as if it were useless; Brodie swept up his club in both hands, grunting audibly with every blow.... Oh, if she could only shoot ... if she only dared shoot! But Brodie, nimble on his feet that had been so patiently slow just now, kept King always in front of him, between him and Gloria's rifle.

"I'll get you, King. I'll get you," shouted Brodie, his voice exulting. "I always wanted to get you—right!"

There was a crash, the splintering of wood against steel. Both men had struck together; Brodie's club had broken to splinters. And the rifle-barrel in King's hands flew out of his grip and across the cave, ringing out as it struck. The two men, their hands empty, stood a moment staring at each other. Then Brodie shouted, a great shout of triumph, and sprang forward. And Mark King, steadying himself, ignoring the hot trickle of blood down his side where Benny's second bullet had torn his flesh, met him with a cry that was like Brodie's own. In his hot brain there was no thought of handicap, of odds, of Brodie's advantage. There was only the mad rage which had hurled him here, one man against five in a girl's defence, that and a raving, unleashed blood lust, the desire, overshadowing all else, to have Brodie's brute throat in his hands, to batter Brodie's brute face into the rocks. They met in their onrush like two bodies hurled from catapults; they struck and grappled and fell and rolled together, one now as they strove, locked in the embrace of death. An embrace in which Brodie's was the greater weight, the greater girth, the greater strength—and Mark King's the greater sheer, clean manhood.

Gloria ran toward them, the rifle shaking in her hands. Brodie feared her and strove to turn and twist so that she could not shoot. King saw her and shouted in a terrible voice which was not like Mark King's voice:

"Don't shoot—let me—"

She did not heed; she would shoot—if ever she could be sure that she would not shoot him. But she did not dare—they thrashed about so madly. They were like octopuses in mortal combat; their arms flailing seemed more than four arms——

Brodie had his hands at King's throat—King's hands were at Brodie's throat. She saw Brodie's bestial face gloating. He was so confident now. She saw his great hands shut down, sinking into the flesh. King's face, when she got one swift glimpse of it, was set, void of expression. King's hands, with tendons bursting, sank deeper and deeper. Then she understood that each man had the grip that he wanted; that it was a mere matter now of strength and endurance and will—and that glorious thing, sheer, clean manhood.