and innocent young
woman to step down with me into the abyss of unearned infamy into which
I had been flung, largely through the efforts of another woman who was
neither good nor innocent. None the less, the delight which was half
intoxication remained and the night was full of waking dreams.

The dark shaft beside me sent up its dank breath of stale powder fumes,
and the acrid odor was as the fragrance of a fertile field ripe for the
sickle. In this reeking pit at my elbow, gold, the subtle, the potent,
the arbiter of all destinies, stood ready to fight for me. The liberty
which I had stolen, but which had first been stolen from me, would
shortly find a defender too strong to be overthrown by all the
prejudice and injustice which are so ready to fly at the throat of
helplessness. The reinstatement, which I had been unable to win as a
mendicant ex-convict, I could buy with gold in the open market; and
when it should be bought and paid for, all the world would clap and
cry, Well done!

Barrett had gone to bed exacting a promise that I should call him at
two o'clock. But I let the hour go by, and another, and yet another,
until the stars were paling in the east when I got up, stiff in every
joint, to meet Gifford as he came up the gulch. He was haggard and
weary, trembling like an overworked draft horse, and he had to lick his
lips before he could frame the words which were to be our alarm signal.

"It's all over," he croaked hoarsely. "The wagon's broke down a couple
of miles below, right out on the open mountain-side. We've been
working like hell all night trying to drag the load down to some place
where we could hide it, but it was no good. Dixon's gone on to town to
get another wagon, but the mischief is done. Come daylight, everybody
on this side of Bull Mountain will know what's in that wagon, and where
it comes from."

The carpenter was practically dead on his feet from the night of fierce
toil, and in addition to his weariness was half-famished. He had come
in while it was yet dark to get something to eat, and was planning to
go back at once. I aroused Barrett promptly, and together we tramped
out to the crest of the spur overlooking the Lawrenceburg workings and
the mountain-side below. In the breaking dawn, with the help of
Barrett's field-glass, we could make out the shape of the disabled
wagon on the bare slope hundreds of feet below. Early as it was, there
was already a number of moving figu