hought it
was the deuce of hearts; but I was too sick over Marcia's discovery
about Paulette to really examine the things and make sure. I shoved them
into my coat pocket beside what was there already, just as Dudley came
into my room.

He had enough to worry him without hearing that Marcia had found out
about Paulette. He sat on my bed, biting his nails; and said--what
Macartney had said--that we had too much gold at La Chance to run the
risk of losing it by a better organized raid on it: and--what I had
known for myself--that the mine output represented his only ready money
for notes that were past renewing, and that it had to go out to
Caraquet. When I said why not, he bit his nails some more, and said he
was afraid of a hold-up: what he wanted me to do was to ride over to the
Halfway and scout around from there to clear the Caraquet road, before I
started out from La Chance with an ounce of gold.

The idea suited me well enough. It would cover my expedition to Skunk's
Misery. But I did not mention that, or Hutton, to Dudley; and never
guessed I was a criminal fool! I did not mean to waste any time in
scouting around the road, either, when I knew just where my man would be
sitting, with the half dozen wastrels he had probably scraped up. But
first I wanted five minutes, even two minutes, with Paulette, to warn
her of what Marcia knew. So I said the afternoon would be time enough to
start.

But Dudley would not hear of it and blazed out till I had to give up all
idea of warning Paulette, and get out. And as I rode away from La Chance
the last person I saw was Macartney, though I might not have remembered
it, if I had not turned my head after I passed and caught the same grin
on his face he had worn there the night his own man shot him. I rode
back and asked him what the mischief he was grinning at.

"Grinning--because I'm angry," Macartney returned with his usual set
stare. "I'd sooner go with you than stay here, burying men and talking
to Wilbraham. I'm sick of La Chance, if you'd like to know. I came here
to mine, not to play in moving pictures. But I guess I've got to stick,
unless I can hurry up my job here. So long--but I don't expect you'll
see anything of last night's man on the Caraquet road!"

Neither did I, nor of any one else. But I was not prepared to find the
Halfway stable empty, when I rode in there just at dark. The house was
as deserted as the stable, though the fire was alive in the stove, and