ed, while Matt
brought out the bundle in the bandana and opened it on the table.

"Ain't they beauties, though!" Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and
for a time he had eyes only for them. "Accordin' to the experts, worth
from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars."

"An' women like them things," Matt commented. "An' they'll do everything
to get 'em--sell themselves, commit murder, anything."

"Just like you an' me."

"Not on your life," Matt retorted. "I'll commit murder for 'em, but not
for their own sakes, but for the sake of what they'll get me. That's the
difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools
for the women an' such things they'll get me."

"Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things," Jim remarked.

"That's what makes commerce," Matt agreed; "people wantin' different
things."

In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was
gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before
and putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove
and started to boil water for the coffee. A few minutes later, Jim
returned.

"Most surprising," he remarked. "Streets, an' stores, an' people just
like they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walkin' along through it
all a millionnaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it"

Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the
lighter whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.

"Did you get a porterhouse?" he demanded.

"Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it."

He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then
he made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.

"Don't put on too much of them red peppers," Jim warned. "I ain't used
to your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot."

Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the
coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had
carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his
back for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around
at him. Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper set
the hot frying pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and
himself.

"Eat her while she's hot," he counselled, and with knife and fork set
the example.

"She's a dandy," was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. "But I
tell you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visi