hat comes after, the worst of
it.

"It looks easy to ye because we got away with the _Southern Cross_ and
the _Legaspi_--but when ye mount the gallows ye'll see the best of old
Thirkle's tricks was to keep his tracks clear and things running sweet.
They'll take you and wring it all out of ye, the whole murderous story,
and swing ye from a high place. Ye'll end on the gallows, Bucky."

"Never ye fret about the gallows. I'll get this gold away neat and clean
if it takes me twenty years, and I'm the lad that can wait until the time
is ripe."

"Maybe ye can," said Thirkle, "but all I want you to remember is that
Thirkle said ye couldn't, and my words will come to ye when ye take those
thirteen steps up to the rope. Just keep that in mind, Bucky."

Buckrow made no reply, but busied himself again with the sling, and as he
got down on his knees with his back toward me, I decided that it was time
that I took a hand in the proceedings. With Thirkle bound, I had nothing
to fear from him, and I began to draw myself up from the ground,
intending to get on one knee and then empty my pistol into Buckrow, who
was not a dozen yards away.

If it had not been that there was a great deal of high, dry grass, that
would crackle if I tried to run through it, I would have attempted to
rush in on Buckrow and knock him senseless with the butt of a pistol. But
as Thirkle sat facing in my direction, and there was little chance of
getting to Buckrow before Thirkle would see me and give the alarm, or
Buckrow hear me coming, I knew the only thing to do was to kill or wound
Buckrow, even though I had to shoot him in the back. It seemed an unfair
advantage, and nothing better than the act of an assassin; but I reasoned
that Thirkle or Buckrow would have little mercy on me if I fell into
their power.

So I arose cautiously, and, parting the grass before me, reached for my
pistol.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ART OF THIRKLE

"So Jim's done for, ye say," said Buckrow. "Good job ye made of it coming
back this way, and good job for me ye did, and the worse for Thirkle."

"Clean job all around, Bucky, and I'm back to have my cut of the pile,"
and then I was sure of dreaming, for that was the voice of Petrak, and it
seemed to me that Petrak ought to be millions of miles away, although I
could not quite settle in my mind just how it was, except that I knew it
couldn't be Petrak speaking--I was dreaming it, and yet I couldn't be
dreaming that awful