e moment, and a slight movement
of the men in their chairs, but never in fear or protest. Every one had
heard the speaker distinctly, and every man distinctly understood him.
Some of them were criminals, one or two had already the stain of blood
on their hands; but even the most timid, who at other times might have
shrunk from suggested assassination, saw in the speaker's words only the
fair removal of a natural enemy.

"All right, boys. I'm ready to wade in at once. Why ain't we on the road
now? We might have been but for foolin' our time away on that man Van
Loo."

"Van Loo!" repeated Hall eagerly,--"Van Loo! Was he here?"

"Yes," said Steptoe shortly, administering a kick under the table to
Hall, as he had no wish to revive the previous irritability of his
comrades. "He's gone, but," turning to the others, "you'd have had to
wait for Mr. Hall's arrival, anyhow. And now you've got your order you
can start. Go in two parties by different roads, and meet on the other
side of the hotel at Hymettus. I'll be there before you. Pick up some
shovels and drills as you go; remember you're honest miners, but don't
forget your shootin'-irons for all that. Now scatter."

It was well that they did, vacating the room more cheerfully and
sympathetically than they had entered it, or Hall's manifest disturbance
over Van Loo's visit would have been noticed. When the last man had
disappeared Hall turned quickly to Steptoe. "Well, what did he say?
Where has he gone?"

"Don't know," said Steptoe, with uneasy curtness. "He was running away
with a woman--well, Mrs. Barker, if you want to know," he added, with
rising anger, "the wife of one of those cursed partners. Jack Hamlin was
here, and was jockeying to stop him, and interfered. But what the devil
has that job to do with our job?" He was losing his temper; everything
seemed to turn upon this infernal Van Loo!

"He wasn't running away with Mrs. Barker," gasped Hall,--"it was with
her MONEY! and the fear of being connected with the Wheat Trust swindle
which he organized, and with our money which I lent him for the same
purpose. And he knows all about that job, for I wanted to get him to go
into it with us. Your name and mine ain't any too sweet-smelling for
the bank, and we ought to have a middleman who knows business to arrange
with them. The bank daren't object to him, for they've employed him in
even shadier transactions than this when THEY didn't wish to appear. I
knew he was in