uired, ignoring his question.
"Have you asked the girl?"

"No; I haven't asked her yet. And the money is the main thing that I
shall be waiting for from this time on."

"I should say it would depend entirely upon the girl--upon what she had
been used to."

"I think--she hasn't--been used to having things made so very soft for
her," he answered rather uncertainly. "But she has at least one ambition
that is going to ask for a good chunk of money at first, until
she--until she gets ready to--to settle down."

"And that is----?"

The suggestive query was never answered.

[Illustration: "None o' that, now! Ye'll be puttin' yer hands up ower
yer heids--the baith o' ye--or it'll be the waur f'r ye!"]

As Prime laid his pipe aside and was about to speak, the dark
backgrounding of shadows beyond the circle of firelight filled suddenly
with a rush of men. Prime saw the glint of the firelight upon a pair of
brown gun-barrels, and when he mechanically reached for his own weapon a
harsh voice with a broad Scottish burr in it broke raggedly into the
stillness.

"None o' that, now! Ye'll be puttin' yer hands up ower yer heids--the
baith o' ye--or it'll be the waur f'r ye! I'd have ye know I'm an
under-sheriff o' this deestrict, and ye'll be reseestin' the officers o'
the law at yer eril!"

XIX

IN DURANCE VILE

PRIME stood up, spreading his empty hands in reasonable token of
submission.

"If you are an officer of the law we have no notion of resisting you,"
he said placably. "What is the charge against us?"

"Ye'll be knowin' that weel enough, I'm thinkin'. Whaur's Indian Jules
and the Cambon man? Maybe ye can tell me that! Aiblins ye'd better not,
though. I'll gie ye fair warnin' that whatever ye say'll be used against
ye."

There seemed to be nothing for it but an unconditional surrender. Prime
looked the posse over appraisively as the men composing it moved forward
into the circle of firelight. The under-sheriff was what his speech
declared him to be--a Scotchman; stubby, square-built, clean-shaven,
with a graying fringe of hair over his ears, a hard-lined mouth, shrewd
eyes under penthouse brows, and a portentous official frown. His posse
men were apparently either "river hogs" or saw-mill hands--rough-looking
young fellows giving the impression that they would obey orders with
small regard for consequences. Prime saw nothing hopeful in the
S