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pull to the next camp, but you can make it all right." Messner'cleared his throat "Your lungs are all right, aren't they?" "Yes, but what of it?" Again the other cleared his throat and spoke with painstaking and judi cial slowness. "Why, I may say, nothing of it, except ah according to your own reasoning, there is noth ing to prevent your getting out, hit ting the frost, so to speak, for a mat ter of ten miles. You can make it all right." Womble looked with quick suspi cion at Theresa and caught in her eyes a glint of pleased surprise. "Well?" he demanded of her. She hesitated and a surge of anger darkened her face. He turned upon Messner. "Enough of this. You can't stop here." "Yes, I can." v Womble stopped a moment to steady his voice and control himself. Then he spoke slowly, in a low, tense voice. "Look here, Messner, if you refuse to get out 111 thrash you. This isn't California. I'll beat you to a jelly with my two fists." Messner shrugged his shoulders. "If you do, I'll call a miners' meeting and see you strung up to the nearest tree. As you said, this is not Cali fornia. ' They're a simple folk, these miners, and all I'll have to do will be to show them the marks of the beat ing, tell them the truth about you, and present my claim for my wife." The woman attempted to speak, but Womble turned upon her fiercely. "You keep out of this!" he cried. In marked contrast was Messner's "Please don't intrude, Theresa." What of her anger and pent feel ings, her lungs were irritated into the dry, hacking cough, and with blood suffused face and one hand clenched against her chest, she waited for the paroxysm to pass. Womble looked gloomily at her, noting the cough. "Something must be done," he said. "Yet her lungs can't stand the' exposure. She can't travel till the temperature rises. And I'm not go ing to give her up." Messner hemmed, cleared his throat, and hemmed again, smiled apologetically, and said: "I need some money." Contempt showed instantly in Womble's face. At last, beneath him in vileness, had the o'ther sunk him self. "You've got a far sick of dust," Messner went on. "I saw you un load it from the sled." . "How much do you want?" Wom ble demanded, with a contempt in his voice equal to that in his face. "I made an estimate of the sack, and I--ah should say it weighed twenty pounds. What do you say we call it four thousand ? " "But it's all I've got, man!" Wom ble cried out. "You've got her," the other said soothingly. "She must be worth ,it. Think what I'm giving up. Surely it is a reasonable price." "All right." Womble rushed across the floor to the gold sack. "Can't put this deal through top quick for me, you you little worm!" "Now, there you -are," was the smiling -rejoinder. As a matter of ethics, isn't the man who gives the bribe as bad as the man who takes a bribe?" "To hell with your ethics!" the other burst out. And the woman, leaning against the bunk, raging and impotent, watched' herself weighed put in yel low dust and nuggets in the scales erected on the grub-box. The scales were small, makinT nc'sary many weighings, and Messner with precise care verified each weighing. "There's too much silver in it," he remarked as he tied up tKe gold sack. "I don't thirik it will run quite 16 to the ounce. You got a trifle the best of me, Womble." He handled the sack lovingly, and tiMtemmmuumm mmmmmmmmmmm oib- & -? i-fc--ViN'!f