the fact, he felt instinctively that, if he could tip
the one-legged plus to the more stable two-legged sign of
multiplication, the result would be twenty-five dollars instead of ten.
He knew that dollars added to, or multiplied by, dollars made wealth;
but he failed to comprehend that wealth was a variable term with no
definite, assignable value. In other words, he never knew, nor ever
would know, when he had enough.

Pierre had started in life with the questionable ambition of becoming
rich. As foreman on a ranch at five dollars a day and found, he was
reasonably contented with simple addition. On the sudden death of his
employer he was left in full charge, with no one to call him to account,
and addition became more frequent and with larger sums. His horizon
widened, the Rainbow mine was opened, and the little town of Pandora
sprang into existence. Three hundred workmen, with unlimited thirst and
a passion for gaming, suggested multiplication, and Pierre moved from
the ranch to the Blue Goose. Had he fixed upon a definition of wealth
and adhered to it, a few years at the Blue Goose would have left him
satisfied. As it was, his ideas grew faster than his legitimate
opportunities. The miners were no more content with their wages than he
with his gains, and so it happened that an underground retort was added
to the above-ground bar and roulette. The bar and roulette had the
sanction of law; the retort was existing in spite of it. The bar and
roulette took care of themselves, and incidentally of Pierre; but with
the retort, the case was different. Pierre had to look out for himself
as well as the furnace. As proprietor of a saloon, his garnered dollars
brought with them the protection of the nine points of the
law--possession; the tenth was never in evidence.

As a vender of gold bullion, with its possession, the nine points made
against rather than for him. As for the tenth, at its best it only
offered an opportunity for explanation which the law affords the most
obviously guilty.

Morrison allowed several days to pass after his interview with Luna
before acquainting Pierre with the failure to land their plunder. The
disclosure might have been delayed even longer had not Pierre made some
indirect inquiries. Pierre had taken the disclosure in a very different
manner from what Morrison had expected. Morrison, as has been set forth,
was a very slick bird, but he was not remarkable for his sagacity. His
cunning had infl