his great
figure upright against the wall, facing Hill with speculation in his
eyes.

Hill lowered his revolver. "I doubt it," he said, grimly.

"Ah! You don't know me yet, do you?" said Warden, a faintly jeering note
in his voice.

"Yes," said Hill, deliberately. "I think I know you--pretty well--now."

"I wonder," said Warden.

He moved slowly forward, throwing the light before him as he did so. The
place had been blasted out of the rock, and here and there the stone
shone smooth as marble where the charge had gone. Rough shelves had been
hewn in the walls, leaving divisions between, and on some of these were
stored bags of the precious metal that had been ground out of the ore.
There was no sign anywhere of any entrance save the iron-bound door
behind Hill.

Straight in front of him Warden stopped. They stood face to face.

"Well?" Warden said. "What do you know of me?"

Hill's eyes were as steel. He stood stiff as a soldier on parade. He
answered curtly, without a hint of emotion. "I know enough to get you
arrested when this--farce--is over."

"Oh, you call this a farce, do you?" Bill Warden's words came slowly from
lips that strangely smiled. "And when does--the fun begin?"

Hill's harsh face was thrown into strong relief by the flare of the
torch. It was as flint confronting the other man. "Do you really imagine
that I regard this sort of Forty Thieves business seriously?" he said.

"I imagine it is pretty serious so far as you are concerned," said
Warden. "You're in about the tightest hole you've ever been in in your
life. And it's up to me to get you out--or to leave you. Do you
understand that?"

"Oh, quite," said Fletcher Hill, sardonically. "But--let me tell you
at the outset--you won't find me specially easy to bargain with on that
count--Mr. Buckskin Bill."

Bill Warden threw up his head with a gesture of open defiance. "I'm not
doing any--bargaining," he said. "And as to arresting me--afterwards--you
can do as you please. But now--just now--you are in my power, and you're
going to play my game. Got that?"

"I can see myself doing it," said Fletcher Hill.

"Yes, you will do it." A sudden deep note of savagery sounded in Warden's
voice. "Not to save your own skin, Mr. Fletcher Hill, but for the sake
of--something more valuable than that--something more precious even than
your cussed pride. You'll do it for the sake of the girl you're going to
marry. And you'll do it--now."

"Shall I?" s