in quantity to make even toughened old
gold-seekers delirious with the dreams of it--why, then, that gold was
half Mark King's and half Ben Gaynor's! And it might be that now, at
this very instant, Mark King was finding it; was standing over it,
staring down at it by the ghostly flare of a smoking torch. She sat,
tense and still, listening, trying to probe with tired but suddenly
bright eyes through the dark.

She started, realizing that no longer could she hear King searching back
and forth. It was very silent about her, only the crackle of the flames
making a sound to be heard against the rush of air outside. It seemed to
her that King had been gone a long time. She rose to her feet, tempted
to follow him. She was curious to know what he was doing; why he was so
silent; where he had gone. But in the end pride restrained her and she
sat down again to wait in an attitude of indifference.

But the minutes dragged on and never a sound came back from the far,
dark depths of the cavern; fifteen minutes, half an hour. She grew
restless and walked up and down; she went to the mouth of the cave and
stood looking out into the swirling snow-storm; she returned to the
fire, throwing on more wood. She felt sure that an hour had passed--two
hours--she began to grow alarmed. Always that dread thought was ready to
spring out upon her: "If something had happened to him!" She went a
little way in the direction he had taken; stood peering into the dark,
listening breathless and rigid. Never a sound. She went back to the
front of the cave, looking down, staring out into the grey sky, across
the ridge....

Gloria, trembling with a new excitement, was down on her knees before
the pack when King returned. She sprang up to face him. And each, with
the other's emotions and experiences of the past two or three hours
unknown to him, marvelled at what was to be read in the other's face.
Gloria was excited; King's excitement was no less. Where she had at
least the clue to his altered expression, he had none to hers.

"It's here!" he burst out. "And I've found it. Tons and tons of it, such
knobs and nuggets of pure gold as never man laid eyes on! We have here
the Magic Lamp to rub: a castle in Spain and an ocean-going yacht and
the newest thing in motor-cars and a trip around the world and a
presentation to royalty--a fragment of heaven and a very large slice of
hell. Ambition fulfilled and love consumed and hate born. We have old
Ben made wh