on; we ain't forgot you." An
uglier note crept into the harsh voice. "You can help. And so can you,"
whirling on Gloria. "Woman or no woman, you got hands and feet."

* * * * *

Night, pitch-black, had come when they had done. Gloria, scarcely able
to stand from exhaustion, her body bruised, her hands and arms wounded
from many a jagged rock as she had gone back and forth carrying heavy
loads, went with the others into the lowest cave in which already the
gold had been stowed away. She sank down wearily; she closed her eyes
rather than watch the men about their fire, eating noisily, drinking
noisily from the bottles which Steve and Tony had brought from their
other camp. Trying to remain unnoticed in the shadows was Gratton.
Brodie, having commanded that a rude rock wall like King's be built
across the mouth of the cave to shut out the cold, and having laboured
with the others at the task, came back to the fire. He took a long pull
at a bottle, emptying it and smashing it to tinkling fragments as he
hurled it behind him. He caught up a big piece of dried beef and gnawed
at it like a dog; though Gloria kept her eyes away from him she could
hear the tearing and grinding of the monstrous teeth.

"It's been a day's work, at that," he said with a full mouth. "But we
ain't done. I noticed how no man has said a word about how we split what
we found."

"There's five of us," said Benny quickly. "We split it five ways, even,
like pardners."

Brodie turned on him slowly, still rending at his meat, still clutching
his rifle and holding it so that no man might forget that he held it.

"Think so, Benny?" he said ponderously. "Being as I've worked on this
lay a long time, since I let you others in on it, since I led you to
it--think that's the fair way to split it? Now suppose you listen to
me. You boys ain't mentioned a split because it was none of your say and
you knew it. Say, in round numbers--but there's ten times that--that
there's a million dollars tucked away here. Why, there's mines all
through these mountains that never thought of stopping at a million;
that was just a fair start! Well, to get going, say there's an even
million. I get just half that; that leaves half a million, don't it?
Now, shut up a minute!" he commanded truculently as more than one man
stirred. "Listen to me. That's five hundred thousand to split between
four of you; that's over a hundred thousand for every man jack o