His estimate had been seventy-five per
cent accurate. One only of the four was untrustworthy.

Lute himself had designated the custodian of the treasure and had fixed
a rendezvous at a long abandoned and decaying cabin in a remote and
thicketed locality. Shortly before dawn Lute arrived there,
unaccompanied and expecting to find his man awaiting him. But
complications had developed. When the quartette that left the mine
last held a hurried conference outside, the squad leader explained that
the very essence of precaution now lay in their separating and seeking
individual cover.

Two of them concurred but the fellow who had attacked Alexander had
become insurgent through drink, chagrin and cupidity.

"Boys," he darkly suggested, "we warn't hired ter go thro no sich rough
times es we've done encountered. I reckon these fellers owes us right
smart more then what they agreed ter pay fust oft--moreover what
sartainty hev we got thet we're goin' ter get anything a-tall?"

They argued with him but his obduracy stood unaffected.

"Thet small sheer thet I agreed ter tek hain't ergoin' ter satisfy me
now," he truculently protested. "I aims ter go along with ther money
hitself and git paid off without no sort of dalliance. I aims ter get
my own price, too."

Finally, since they could not overlook the menace of disaffection, the
leader agreed to take this man with him to Lute Brown for adjustment of
the dispute, and the two set off together, while the other two left
them at a fork of the trail. On the way to the cabin, the disgruntled
one drank more moonshine liquor than was good for him and when they
arrived there the place was seemingly empty, for Lute, watching with
hawk-like vigilance, had made out that instead of one man two were
approaching and he had slipped out through a back door into the void of
the darkness. A lantern without a chimney burned in the deserted room
and cabin and that was safe enough in a place so screened, but it
showed the two newcomers that there was no one waiting there. To the
inflamed and suspicious brother this seemed an indication of broken
faith. Perhaps after all he had been lured here to be paid off with
treachery and murder!

"So ye lied ter me!" he bellowed in passion. "Hit war jest like I
thought. Now I aims ter tek hit all myself!" And snatching out a
knife he hurled himself on his comrade of an hour ago.

That one dropped the saddle-bags and fumbled for his pistol, bu