the man to come in.
The jailer's eyes glittered understandingly and with a backward glance
down the lighted corridor he thrust his head and shoulders inside.

"Five hundred dollars for that note!" he whispered. "Five hundred beside
the four you've got!"

"Jeekum's a fool!" said Neil, as the door closed on them. "I feel sorry
for him."

"Why?"

"Because he is accepting the money. Don't you suppose that you have been
searched? Of course you have--probably before I came, while you were
half dead on the floor. Somebody knows that you have the gold."

"Why hasn't it been taken?"

For a full minute Neil made no answer. And his answer, when it did come,
first of all was a laugh.

"By George, that's good!" he cried exultingly. "Of course you were
searched--and by Jeekum! He knows, but he hasn't made a report of it to
Strang because he believes that in some way he will get hold of the
money. He is taking a big risk--but he's winning! I wonder what his
first scheme was?"

"Thought I'd bury it, perhaps," vouchsafed Nathaniel, throwing himself
upon the straw. "There's room for two here, Neil."

A long silence fell between them. The action during the last few minutes
had been too great an effort for Nathaniel and his wound troubled him
again. As the pain and his terrible thoughts of Marion's fate returned
to him he regretted that they had not ended it all in one last fight at
the door. There, at least, they might have died like men instead of
waiting to be shot down like dogs, their hands bound behind them, their
breasts naked to the Mormon rifles. He did not fear death. In more than
one game he had played against its hand, more often for love of the
sport than not, but there was a horror in being penned up and tortured
by it. He had come to look upon it as a fair enemy, filled of course
with subterfuge and treachery, which were the laws of the game; but he
had never dreamed of it as anything but merciful in its quickness. It
was as if his adversary had broken an inviolable pact with him and he
sweated and tossed on his bed of straw while Neil sat cool and silent on
the bench against the dungeon wall. Sheer exhaustion brought him relief,
and after a time he fell asleep.

He was awakened by Neil. The white face of Marion's brother was over him
when he opened his eyes and he was shaking him roughly by the shoulder.

"Wake up, Nat!" he cried. "For Heaven's sake--wake up!"

He drew back as Nathaniel sleepily roused himsel