m him while that for which men cut one another's throats was flung
in his face. Yes, he had become just a child once more,--a child
mouthing for the breast of Nature.

When he reached the opening he dropped flat with his head over the
chasm. His blurred eyes could still see one thing--the big, cool lake
where the moon laughed back at herself,--the big cool lake where the
water bathed the shores,--the big cool lake where Jo slept.

Jo--love--life--these were just below him. And behind him, within
reach of his weak fingers, lay a useless half billion in precious
stones. So he fought for life in the center of the web.

CHAPTER XXII

_The Taste of Rope_

Stubbs was lying flat upon his chest staring anxiously down into the
fissure where Wilson had disappeared when suddenly he felt a weight
upon his back and another upon each of his outstretched arms. In spite
of this, he reached his knees, but the powerful brown men still clung.
He shook himself as a mad bull does at the sting of the darts. It was
just as useless. In another minute he was thrown again, and in
another, bound hand and foot with a stout grass rope. Without a word,
as though he were a slain deer, he was lifted to their shoulders and
ignominiously carted down the mountain side. It was all so quickly
done that he blinked back at the sun in a daze as though awaking from
some evil dream. But his uncomfortable position soon assured him that
it was a reality and he settled into a sullen rage. He had been
captured as easily as a drunken sailor is shanghaied.

They never paused until they lowered him like a bundle of hay within a
dozen feet of where he had tethered his burros. Instantly he heard a
familiar voice jabbering with his captors. In a few minutes the
Priest himself stepped before him and studied him curiously as he
rolled a cigarette.

"Where is the other?" he asked.

"Find him," growled Stubbs.

"Either I or the Golden One will find him,--that is certain. There is
but one pass over the mountain," he added in explanation.

"Maybe. What d' ye want of us, anyway?"

The Priest flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

"What did _you_ want--by the hut yonder? Your course lay another
way."

"Ain't a free man a right up there?"

"It is the shrine of the Golden One."

"It ain't marked sech."

"But you have learned--now. It is better in a strange country to learn
such things before than afterwards."

"The same to you--'bout strange people."