h a short
defiant laugh.

"Humph" exclaimed Charlie with a shrug. "I've not much confidence in
_that_ safeguard. No doubt, in certain circumstances, and on certain
occasions, the revolver is a most important and useful instrument, but,
taking it all round, I would not put much store by it. When you met me
at the Blue Fork to-night, for instance, of what use was my revolver to
me? And, for the matter of that, after you had dropped it on the road
of what use was yours to you? It only wants one of your fellows to have
more pluck and a quicker eye and hand than yourself to dethrone you at
once."

"Well, none of my fellows," returned Buck Tom good-humouredly, "happen
to have the advantage of me at present, so you may trust me and count
this as one o' the `certain occasions' on which a revolver is a most
important instrument."

"I dare say you are right," responded Charlie, smiling, as he drew from
the breast of his coat a small bag and handed it to his companion.

"You know exactly, of course, how much is here?" asked Buck Tom.

"Yes, exactly."

"That's all right," continued Buck, thrusting the bag into the bosom of
his hunting coat; "now I'll see if any o' the boys are at home.
Doubtless they are out--else they'd have heard us by this time. Just
wait a minute."

He seemed to melt into the darkness as he spoke. Another minute and he
re-appeared.

"Here, give me your hand," he said; "the passage is darkish at first."

Charlie Brooke felt rather than saw that they had passed under a portal
of some sort, and were advancing along a narrow passage. Soon they
turned to the left, and a faint red light--as of fire--became visible in
the distance. Buck Tom stopped.

"There's no one in the cave but _him_, and he's asleep. Follow me."

The passage in which they stood led to a third and shorter one, where
the light at its extremity was intense, lighting up the whole of the
place so as to reveal its character. It was a corridor about seven feet
high and four feet wide cut out of the solid earth; arched in the roof
and supported here and there by rough posts to make it still more
secure. Charlie at once concluded that it led to one of those concealed
caverns, of which he had heard more than once while crossing the
country, the entrances of which are made in zig-zag form in order to
prevent the possibility of a ray of light issuing from the outside
opening.

On reaching the end of the third passage he found that