ifted the ingot.

"Only gold or lead could weigh like this," he said exultantly.

Hooker was still looking at the dead Chinaman. He was puzzled.

"He stole a march on his friends," he said at last. "He came here alone,
and some poisonous snake has killed him... I wonder how he found the
place."

Evans stood with the ingot in his hands. What did a dead Chinaman signify?
"We shall have to take this stuff to the mainland piecemeal, and bury it
there for a while. How shall we get it to the canoe?"

He took his jacket off and spread it on the ground, and flung two or three
ingots into it. Presently he found that another little thorn had punctured
his skin.

"This is as much as we can carry," said he. Then suddenly, with a queer
rush of irritation, "What are you staring at?"

Hooker turned to him. "I can't stand him ..." He nodded towards the
corpse. "It's so like----"

"Rubbish!" said Evans. "All Chinamen are alike."

Hooker looked into his face. "I'm going to bury _that_, anyhow,
before I lend a hand with this stuff."

"Don't be a fool, Hooker," said Evans, "Let that mass of corruption bide."

Hooker hesitated, and then his eye went carefully over the brown soil
about them. "It scares me somehow," he said.

"The thing is," said Evans, "what to do with these ingots. Shall we
re-bury them over here, or take them across the strait in the canoe?"

Hooker thought. His puzzled gaze wandered among the tall tree-trunks, and
up into the remote sunlit greenery overhead. He shivered again as his eye
rested upon the blue figure of the Chinaman. He stared searchingly among
the grey depths between the trees.

"What's come to you, Hooker?" said Evans. "Have you lost your wits?"

"Let's get the gold out of this place, anyhow," said Hooker.

He took the ends of the collar of the coat in his hands, and Evans took
the opposite corners, and they lifted the mass. "Which way?" said Evans.
"To the canoe?"

"It's queer," said Evans, when they had advanced only a few steps, "but my
arms ache still with that paddling."

"Curse it!" he said. "But they ache! I must rest."

They let the coat down, Evans' face was white, and little drops of sweat
stood out upon his forehead. "It's stuffy, somehow, in this forest."

Then with an abrupt transition to unreasonable anger: "What is the good of
waiting here all the day? Lend a hand, I say! You have done nothing but
moon since we saw the dead Chinaman."

Hooker was looking steadfastly