twell's reflections were interrupted by Zephyr's request for the keys
to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open
hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again
came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might
be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind
energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned
back in his chair with tolerant resignation.

"If it amuses you people to make a mountain out of a molehill I can
afford to stand it."

Bennie looked pityingly at Hartwell. "God Almighty must have it in for
you bad, or he'd let you open your eyes t'other end to, once in a
while."

As the safe was finally opened and one by one the dull yellow bars were
piled on the scales, there was too much tenseness to allow of even a
show of levity. Zephyr had no doubts. No one could have got at the safe
while in the river; he could swear to that. From its delivery to the
driver by Firmstone there had been no time nor opportunity to tamper
with its contents. As for Firmstone, he had too much at stake to be
entirely free from anxiety, though neither voice nor manner betrayed it.
He had had experience enough to teach him that it was not sufficient to
be honest--one must at all times be prepared to prove it.

The last ingot was checked off. Firmstone silently handed Hartwell the
copy of his original letter of advice and the totalled figures of the
recent weighing. Hartwell accepted them with a cynical smile and laid
them indifferently aside.

"Well," he remarked; "all I can say is, the company recovered the safe
in the nick of time, from whom I don't pretend to say. We've got it, and
that's enough." There was a grin of cunning defiance on his face. He had
entered a covert where further pursuit was impossible.

For once Bennie felt unequal to the emergency. He turned silently, but
appealingly, to Zephyr.

It was a new experience for Zephyr as well. For the first time in his
life he felt himself jarred to the point of quick retort, wholly
unconsonant with his habitual serenity. His face flushed. His hand moved
jerkily to the bosom of his shirt, only to be as jerkily removed empty.
The harmonica was decidedly unequal to the task. His lips puckered and
straightened. His final resort was more satisfying. He deliberately
seated himself on the safe and began rolling a cigarette. Placing it to
his lips, he drew a ma