n's,--who was dead and buried, and Collins with
him! But suddenly I was blazing angry, for the chuckle came again,
and--dead man's or not--it was mocking! I jumped to it and caught a live
throat, hard. But before I could choke the breath out of it a voice that
was not Dunn's shouted at me: "Hold your horses, for any sake, Stretton!
It's us."

A match rasped, flared in my eyes, and I saw Dunn and Collins! Saw
Dunn's stubbly fair hair, clipped close till it stood on end, as it had
on the skull I'd said a prayer over and buried; saw Collins standing on
the long shank bones I knew I had buried in the bush!

I stared, dazed, facing the two boys I could have sworn were dead and
buried. And instead Dunn gasped wheezingly from the rock where I had let
him drop, and Collins drawled as if we had met yesterday:

"We heard we were dead! But it wasn't us you buried, or any of Hutton's
men either, for he'd have missed 'em. I expect you'd better put your
funeral down to two stray prospectors, and let it go at that!" He looked
curiously into my face. "You don't seem to have got much yourself by
playing the giddy goat with Hutton!"

In the dying flicker of his match I saw his young, sneering eyes, as he
called Macartney "Hutton," and realized furiously that Paulette had been
right, not only that Dunn and Collins were alive, but that they were on
Macartney's side. I blazed out at the two of them:

"So you've been in with Hutton all along, you young swine! I've been a
blank fool; I ought to have guessed Hutton had bought you!"

Dunn let out a sharp oath, but Collins only threw down the glowing end
of his match. "I wouldn't say we were on Hutton's pay roll exactly,
since you seem to have found out Macartney's real name at last," he
retorted scornfully. "We've been on our own, ever since we saw fit to
disappear and bunk in here. Though by luck Hutton hasn't guessed it, or
we wouldn't be here now!"

"I don't know that it's any too clear why you are here," I flung out
hotly. "D'ye mean to say you've been living here, _hiding_, ever since
you cleared out, and I thought the wolves ate you? That you knew all
along who Macartney was--and never told me?"

"Not exactly here, if you mean Thompson's old stope you're corked up in;
but of course we knew Macartney was Hutton," Collins returned
categorically. "As for telling you about him--well, we weren't any too
sure you weren't Hutton's man yourself--till to-night!"

"_What?_" said I.

But