rintendent presently.
"Better take warning. Next time you'll go to the pen sure."

"Wait till I get you into court, Bleyer."

"What'll you do there?" jeered the other man. "You'd have a heluvatime
swearing to him and making it stick. You're sewed up tight this time,
Jack."

"Am I? Bet you a new hat that by this time to-morrow night you fellows
won't be cracking your lips laughing."

"Take you. Just order the hat left at Goldstein's for the man who calls
for it."

For an hour by the superintendent's watch Kilmeny was held under guard.
Then, after warning the highgrader not to return to town before
daybreak, the two men mounted and rode swiftly away. Jack was alone with
his mules and his empty wagon.

He restrained himself no longer. Mirth pealed in rich laughter from his
throat, doubled him up, shook him until he had to hang on to a wagon
wheel for support. At last he wiped tears from his eyes, climbed into
the wagon, and continued on the way to the Jack Pot. At intervals his
whoop of gayety rang out boyishly on the night breeze. Again he whistled
cheerfully. He was in the best of humor with himself and the world. For
he had played a pretty good joke on Bleyer and Verinder, one they would
appreciate at its full within a day or two. He would have given a good
deal to be present when they made a certain discovery. Would Moya smile
when Verinder told her how the tables had been turned? Or would she
think it merely another instance of his depravity?

The road wound up and down over scarred hillsides and through gorges
which cut into the range like sword clefts. From one of these it crept
up a stiff slope toward the Jack Pot. One hundred and fifty yards from
the mine Jack drew up to give the mules a rest.

His lips framed themselves to whistle the first bars of a popular song,
but the sound died stillborn. Sharply through the clear night air rang a
rifle shot.

Jack did not hear it. A bolt of jagged lightning seared through his
brain. The limp hands of the driver fell away from the reins and he fell
to the ground, crumpling as a dry leaf that is crushed in the palm.

From the shadow of the bunk-house two men stole into the moonlight
heavily like awkward beasts of prey. They crept stealthily forward,
rifles in hand, never once lifting their eyes from the huddled mass
beside the wagon.

The first looked stolidly down upon the white face and kicked the body
with his heavy boot.

"By Goad, Dave, us be quits wi' Ja