So now, for the first time, she began a
certain logical line of thought, seeking to shape her own plans.

"Please listen to me seriously," King said quietly to her. "I won't talk
long to you. Your father is on the edge of bankruptcy. He is temporarily
out of the running--at the hands of the very men you want to go to. He
counts on me for what is in Gus Ingle's caves. I have found at least a
part of it and I honestly believe that it is in your hands and mine to
pull Ben through and leave him a rich man on top of it. Gratton and
Brodie are down there; they'll clean us out if they can. The stake is
big enough for them to stop at nothing short of murder, and I am not
oversure they'd stop there. Gus Ingle's crowd didn't, and I don't know
that men have changed much in half a hundred years."

"I am listening," said Gloria coolly when he paused.

"Here's the point: this is treasure-trove; we got here first. It is up
to us to hold it. Can I count on you? You don't happen to have any love
for me; well, you shouldn't have any for Gratton or Brodie, either. And
you know that you can trust yourself to me. Can I count on you sticking
on the job, your father's and your own job as much as mine, until we
make a go of it?"

Gloria's logical thinking had barely begun, and as yet had not had time
to progress. Her spite was lively and bitter. In her distorted vision,
blurred by passionate anger, she cried out quickly:

"So, now that the odds are against you, you come cringing to me, do
you?" Again she was misled into fancying that she held a whip-hand over
him. "Answering your question, I would trust Mr. Gratton any day rather
than you. He, at least, is not quite the brute and bully that you are."

King was hardly disappointed.

"At least you have given a straight answer," he muttered. "That is
something."

Now he shaped his plans swiftly and carefully, knowing where she stood.
It was characteristic of him that, once having seen clearly his own
responsibility toward a foolish girl, he did not seek to simplify his
own difficulty by ridding himself of her. Henceforth he would merely
consider her his chief handicap, with him but against him. He consoled
himself with the whimsical thought that there was never a proper
treasure-hunt that did not carry traitorous mutineers on the questing
ship.

_Chapter XXII_

And so, after all, he and Gloria were not alone in the mountains; that
other crowd was still to be reckoned with. Kin