Her saddle-bags were gone.

She came out then and having repossessed herself of her rifle took up a
position well to one side of the shaft's opening where anyone who
entered must pass her muzzle, but she did not venture into the passage
itself because she was sure that that way lay an ambuscade.

Then, beside the sickly illumination within, she recognized a new waver
of kerosene rays from beyond the entrance.

There was no sound, except that of very stealthy feet, and the light
came slowly.

Alexander hastened hack to her rock, holding close to the walls of the
cavern as she went, then ensconcing herself there, almost invisible in
the shadow, she waited with parted lips and a cocked rifle.

CHAPTER XII

Time had hung heavy on Jack Halloway's hands after he had heard Brent
announce his departure. The chair scraped on the floor, had been his
only assurance that the other had understood him and that might, within
possibility, have been a coincidence. Still Brent's promptness in
cutting him off on the arrival of the operator had seemed a hopeful
sign indicating team-work.

Halloway had declared himself a man who took joy in the savage strain
which that civilization had failed to quench out of his nature. Now
that strain was mounting into volcano stirrings presaging an eruption.
If he could free himself there would ensue a tempest of wreckage about
that railroad station such as Samson brought down between the pillars
of the temple--but no chances had been taken in his binding.

He did not relish the thought of being left there over night, yet he
strongly doubted whether they would venture to take him out on the
streets in the sight of possible friends.

He fell to wondering what they would do with him. Except in extremity,
they would hardly murder him out of hand, and yet to explain to him why
they had treated him so hardly, would be a delicate matter. But the
answer lay in the operator's total freedom from suspicion that his
captive had read the wire. So far as that backwoods Machiavelli
divined, there was no link establishing himself with the conspiracy to
rob, and when the time came he thought he could clear his skirts by a
simple means.

Night had fallen when at last the prisoner heard the door open and saw
the Agent enter, accompanied by the two gunmen who had been his
companions that morning. They came with a lantern and the telegraph
man held a heavy rasp in his hand. Halting before the boun