re you going to do with me?" And this question he repeated
daily and many times a day. And always Edith replied that he would
assuredly be dealt with according to law. In turn, she put a daily
question to him,--"Why did you do it?" To this he never replied. Also,
he received the question with out-bursts of anger, raging and straining
at the rawhide that bound him and threatening her with what he would do
when he got loose, which he said he was sure to do sooner or later. At
such times she cocked both triggers of the gun, prepared to meet him with
leaden death if he should burst loose, herself trembling and palpitating
and dizzy from the tension and shock.

But in time Dennin grew more tractable. It seemed to her that he was
growing weary of his unchanging recumbent position. He began to beg and
plead to be released. He made wild promises. He would do them no harm.
He would himself go down the coast and give himself up to the officers of
the law. He would give them his share of the gold. He would go away
into the heart of the wilderness, and never again appear in civilization.
He would take his own life if she would only free him. His pleadings
usually culminated in involuntary raving, until it seemed to her that he
was passing into a fit; but always she shook her head and denied him the
freedom for which he worked himself into a passion.

But the weeks went by, and he continued to grow more tractable. And
through it all the weariness was asserting itself more and more. "I am
so tired, so tired," he would murmur, rolling his head back and forth on
the pillow like a peevish child. At a little later period he began to
make impassioned pleas for death, to beg her to kill him, to beg Hans to
put him our of his misery so that he might at least rest comfortably.

The situation was fast becoming impossible. Edith's nervousness was
increasing, and she knew her break-down might come any time. She could
not even get her proper rest, for she was haunted by the fear that Hans
would yield to his mania and kill Dennin while she slept. Though January
had already come, months would have to elapse before any trading schooner
was even likely to put into the bay. Also, they had not expected to
winter in the cabin, and the food was running low; nor could Hans add to
the supply by hunting. They were chained to the cabin by the necessity
of guarding their prisoner.

Something must be done, and she knew it. She forced he