"

But he was in no mood to be humbled by her disapproval. Curiously, he
was intensely excited. He mushed away toward the cavern mouth.

Two minutes later he stood in the darkness of the funnel, fumbling for a
match. "Gold, gold, gold," he whispered. "Heaps and heaps of it--what
I've always hunted. And Bill had to find it. That devil had to walk
right into it."

He was sickened by the thought that except for his own cowardice he
would have accompanied them into the den. At least he should have done
that much, he told himself, to atone for his conduct during the bear's
charge. Then he would have been in a position to claim half the
mine--and get it too. Dark thoughts, curiously engrossing and lustful,
thronged his mind.

He found a match at least and it flared in the darkness. And the white
skeleton lay just at his feet.

He drew back, startled, but instantly recognized his poise. He knelt
with unexplicable intentness. He too saw the ghastly wound and its grim
connection with the rusted pick. And he bent, slowly, like a man who is
trying to control an unwonted eagerness, lifted the pick in his arms.

His fingers seemed to curl around it, like those of a miser around his
gold. Some way, his grasp seemed caressing. Oh, it was easy to handle
and lift! How naturally it swung in his arms! What a deadly blow the
cruel point could inflict! Just one little tap had been needed.
Bronson had rocked and fallen, no longer to hold his share in the mine's
gold. If there were an enemy before him now, one tap, and one alone was
all that would be needed.

He could picture the scene of some twenty years before; the flickering
candles, the gray walls covered with dancing shadows, the yellow
gold,--beautiful in the light. He could see Bronson working,--always the
plodder, always the fool! Behind him Rutheford, his partner, the pick
in his arms and his brave intent in his brain. Then one swift
stroke----

Harold did not know that at the thought his muscles made involuntary
response. He swung the pick down, imagining the blow, with a ferocity
and viciousness that would have been terrible to see.

In the darkness his face was drawn and savage, and ugly fires glowed and
smoldered and flamed in his eyes.

XX

Bill made plans for an early start to his Twenty-three Mile cabin. The
hike would have been easy enough, considering the firm snow that covered
the underbrush, but the hours of daylight were few and