ed
to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. In one short sentence Bryce
had shattered all his hopes and pulled his airy castles to the ground.
Did this man but like to speak he would be once again Cumshaw the
bushranger, the man who had been hand in glove with Bradby, and who,
through some miracle of mischance, had not been bracketed with his dead
colleague. Bryce knew all apparently, and a word from him----. Cumshaw
shivered.

"You can trust me," Bryce said softly. "I guess I know your secret now.
You and Bradby carried out that robbery between you. You hid the gold,
and for one reason and another you've never retrieved it. Isn't that
it?"

Cumshaw nodded. It was too late now to deny anything, even if he had so
felt inclined. Nemesis in the shape of this laughing-eyed, gross-bodied
man, had come upon him in his old age, and there was nothing for it but
to take what was coming with as good a grace as he could muster.

"What happened thirty years or more ago is over and done with," Bryce
ran on, "and I'm not the sort to bring it into the light of day again.
I'm after that gold, and, in order to get it, I'm quite ready to repeat
my previous offer. We each seem to have something that the other lacks.
You can tell me many things I don't know. Of that I'm sure."

"There's a lot of things you seem sure of," Cumshaw said with a
half-defiant air.

"I'm as sure that you're the man who was with Bradby as if I'd seen it
all myself," Bryce stated. "Remember, before you refuse, that it's
always better to compromise than fight. Furthermore, if you have to
fight, it's much better to have an ally you can rely on."

"What's that?" Cumshaw demanded with a show of interest. "What do you
mean?"

"Only this," Bryce said slowly. "There's another crowd on the track, and
they've already warned me that they'll make the going heavy. If you've
got to be up against them, why not throw in your lot with me? It's
fifty-fifty with us; if you stand out on your own, you'll probably lose
it all."

"I think you've got me in a cleft stick," Cumshaw said a trifle
ruefully. "I can't see that I can refuse. Now how much do you know?"

Said Mr. Bryce untruthfully, "I know everything except where you've
hidden the gold."

"And even I couldn't swear to that," Cumshaw said.

"It seems to me," said Bryce dryly, "that the best thing you can do is
to tell me the whole story."

He listened eagerly to the tale, occasionally stopping the other to
qu