e was nothing but a series of steel drawers and strong chests,
lining the walls of the room and leaving in the center very little room
in which one might move about.

He had only a moment to see all of this. Ruth Tolliver, hooded in an
evening cloak, but with the light gleaming in her coppery hair, was
shaking him by the arm and leaning a white face close to him.

"Hurry!" she was saying. "There isn't a minute to lose. You must start
now, at once. They will find out--they will guess--and then--"

"John Mark?" he asked.

"Yes," she exclaimed, realizing that she had said too much, and she
pressed her hand over her mouth, looking at Ronicky Doone in a sort of
horror.

Jerry Smith had come to his feet at last, but he remained in the
background, staring with a befuddled mind at the lovely vision of the
girl. Fear and excitement and pleasure had transformed her face, but she
seemed trembling in an agony of desire to be gone. She seemed invincibly
drawn to remain there longer still. Ronicky Doone stared at her, with a
strange blending of pity and admiration. He knew that the danger was not
over by any means, but he began to forget that.

"This way!" called the girl and led toward an opposite door, very low in
the wall.

"Lady," said Ronicky gently, "will you hold on one minute? They won't
start to go through the smoke for a while. They'll think they've choked
us, when we don't come out on the rush, shooting. But they'll wait quite
a time to make sure. They don't like my style so well that they'll hurry
me." He smiled sourly at the thought. "And we got time to learn a lot of
things that we'll never find out, unless we know right now, pronto!"

He stepped before the girl, as he spoke. "How come you knew we were in
there? How come you to get down here? How come you to risk everything
you got to let us out through the treasure room of Mark's gang?"

He had guessed as shrewdly as he could, and he saw, by her immediate
wincing, that the shot had told.

"You strange, mad, wild Westerner!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell
me you want to stay here and talk? Even if you have a moment to spare
you must use it. If you knew the men with whom you are dealing you would
never dream of--"

In her pause he said, smiling: "Lady, it's tolerable clear that you
don't know me. But the way I figure it is this: a gent may die any time,
but, when he finds a minute for good living, he'd better make the most
of it."

He knew by her eyes