rlier
touch of malaria returned to him, and he suffered from intermittent
chills and fever. The day came when Blake suggested it was about time
for them to move on.

"Where to?" asked Binhart. Little had passed between the two men, but
during all those silent nights and days each had been secretly yet
assiduously studying the other.

"Back to New York," was Blake's indifferent-noted answer. Yet this
indifference was a pretense, for no soul had ever hungered more for a
white man's country than did the travel-worn and fever-racked Blake.
But he had his part to play, and he did not intend to shirk it. They
went about their preparations quietly, like two fellow excursionists
making ready for a journey with which they were already over-familiar.
It was while they sat waiting for the guides and mules that Blake
addressed himself to the prisoner.

"Connie," he said, "I 'm taking you back. It does n't make much
difference whether I take you back dead or alive. But I 'm going to
take you back."

The other man said nothing, but his slight head-movement was one of
comprehension.

"So I just wanted to say there's no side-stepping, no four-flushing, at
this end of the trip!"

"I understand," was Binhart's listless response.

"I'm glad you do," Blake went on in his dully monotonous voice.
"Because I got where I can't stand any more breaks."

"All right, Jim," answered Binhart. They sat staring at each other.
It was not hate that existed between them. It was something more
dormant, more innate. It was something that had grown ineradicable; as
fixed as the relationship between the hound and the hare. Each wore an
air of careless listlessness, yet each watched the other, every move,
every moment.

It was as they made their way slowly down to the coast that Blake put
an unexpected question to Binhart.

"Connie, where in hell did you plant that haul o' yours?"

This thing had been worrying Blake. Weeks before he had gone through
every nook and corner, every pocket and crevice in Binhart's belongings.

The bank thief laughed a little. He had been growing stronger, day by
day, and as his spirits had risen Blake's had seemed to recede.

"Oh, I left that up in the States, where it 'd be safe," he answered.

"What 'll you do about it?" Blake casually inquired.

"I can't tell, just yet," was Binhart's retort.

He rode on silent and thoughtful for several minutes. "Jim," he said
at last, "we 're both about done