ll do, Moran," he said, finally. "Give me a hand
out of this hole, or come down here yourself. Throw aside your gun, but
keep your knife. I'll allow you that advantage. Meet me face to face!
Damn you, be a man! Anything that you can gain by my signature, you can
gain by my death. Get the best of me, if you can, in a man's fight.
Pah!" He spat contemptuously. "You're a coward, Moran, a white-livered
coward! You don't dare fight with me on anything like equal terms. I'll
get out of here somehow, and when I do--by Heaven, I'll corner you, and
I'll make you fight."

"Get out? How?" Moran laughed the idea to scorn. "Your friends can look
for you from now till snowfall. They'll never find even your bones. Rot
there, if you choose. Why should I take a chance on you when I've got
you where I want you? You ought to die. You know too much."

"Yes," Wade retorted grimly. "I know too much. I know enough to hang
you, you murderer. Who killed Oscar Jensen? Answer that! You did it, or
you had it done, and then you tried to put it on Santry and me, and I'm
not the only one who knows it. This country's too small to hold you,
Moran. Your fate is settled already, whatever may happen to me."

"Still, I seem to be holding four aces now," Moran grinned back at him.
"And the cards are stacked."

Left alone, Wade rolled himself a cigarette from his scant hoard of
tobacco. Already he was hungry, for deep shadows in his prison marked
the approach of night, and he had the appetite of a healthy man. The
knowledge that he was to be denied food made him feel the hungrier,
until he resolutely put the thought of eating out of his mind. The
water, trickling down the face of the rock, was a God-send, though, and
he drank frequently from the little stream.

By habit a heavy smoker, he viewed with dismay the inroads which he had
already made on his store of tobacco for that deprivation he felt would
be the most real of any that he could suffer. He tried to take shorter
puffs upon his cigarette, and between them shielded the fire with his
hand, so that the air-draughts in the fissure might not cheat him of any
of the smoke. He figured that he had scarcely enough tobacco left for a
dozen cigarettes, which was less than his usual daily allowance.

On searching his pockets, in the hope of finding a second sack of
Durham, he chanced upon his clasp-knife, and viewed the find with joy.
The thought of using it as a weapon did not impress him, for his captors