-boiled egg face never changed with one word of it.

"So that was how it was worked," he reflected quite composedly. "And
Macartney thinks it was I Marcia found! Well, it wasn't--though I
daresay it was my coat, all right, just as it was my cap Paulette picked
up by the road. But it damn well would have been me, if it hadn't been
for"--he paused casually, and pointed behind him--"Baker."

"Baker! That good-for-nothing devil who was always trailing after you?
Why, Macartney said----" but I remembered Macartney had only said Baker
was missing, too. I wheeled on the dimness of the inside cave and saw
what I had missed in my flurry over Dudley. A second man--white-faced,
black-eyebrowed, slim looking--was standing just where the fire glow did
not reach him, staring at Paulette and me. I said, "Land of love,
_Baker_!" And I may be forgiven if I swore.

Baker nodded as undramatically as Dudley. "Yes, it was me. I had sense
enough all along to guess Macartney was going to finish Mr. Wilbraham
with the wolf dope he'd tried out on you, if the rest of the gang
hadn't. And I wouldn't stand for sculduddery like that, for one thing;
and for another I thought I'd come out better in the end by sticking to
the boss, like you seen me doing often enough! So I just told him he was
being lain for and brought him out here. I knew this cave was safe, for
I lived here two months before me and the rest of us dribbled into La
Chance. And I knew the Halfway wasn't--for the two men who turned Billy
Jones out of it, with a sham letter from the boss, were the two who
drowned old Thompson! I've played honest in my way, Mr. Stretton, if
you never thought so."

"Shut up," Dudley interrupted him indignantly. "I'd be where Marcia
thought she found me, if it hadn't been for you. Listen, Stretton! I got
fussy after you left for Billy Jones's that afternoon; I'd been hitting
it up the day before, and you know how that leaves me! I didn't see why
in blazes I hadn't gone with you to Billy's instead of sitting around
the house, and a couple of hours after you left I started out to get a
horse and follow you. But it's a lie that I heard wolves, or thought of
them: there wasn't one around the place. Macartney wasn't around,
either. I guess he was out in the bush fixing up the wolf-baited ground
that was to get me, for he'd fixed up my coat and cap with it before he
started. I thought something smelt like the devil when I put them on,
but I never guessed it w