bottom, he sat back upon his heels, a leaping
light in his eyes.

"Caught with the goods on, by God!" he cried. "Look here, Struve!"

He had whipped out a canvas bag which gave forth the chink of gold.
Another came after it. And across each bag was stamped "Packard
Springs Bank."

Del Rio's eyes had wandered a moment to Cutter and the evidence. Then
they came back to Norton, filled with black malevolence. One did not
need to understand the southern language to grasp the meaning of the
words muttered under his breath.

Within the half-hour Strove, Cutter, and Engle had apologized to
Norton; after this, they promised him to keep their hands off and their
mouths shut.

That evening Virginia and Norton sat long together on Struve's veranda.
There was more silence than talk between them. Norton seemed
abstracted; the girl was plainly constrained, anxious, and found it
difficult to keep her mind upon the thin thread of conversation joining
their occasional remarks. Abruptly, out of one of their wordless
intervals, she said quickly:

"Congratulate me on being a rich woman! I got a check from an old,
almost forgotten, patient to-day. A hundred dollars, all in one lump!
It's a fortune in San Juan, isn't it?"

Norton laughed with her.

"I feel like spending it all in a breath," she ran on. "I went right
away to Mr. Engle and had him cash it so that I could see what five
twenty-dollar gold pieces looked like. And I chinked them and played
with them like a child! Do you think I am growing greedy for gold in
my old age? . . . You ought to see them piled up, though; five
twenties. Isn't gold a pretty thing? I've a notion to go get them and
show them to you; they're right on my table ..."

She broke off suddenly, her hand on his arm.

"Did you see some one out there at the corner of the house?" she asked
quickly. "Do you think . . ."

Then she laughed again and settled back in her chair.

"Already thinking somebody is going to steal my gold! My five
twenties. Just to punish myself I am going to leave them on my office
table all night; do you suppose I'll be wondering all the time if
somebody is crawling in at a window and taking them?"

Five minutes later she said good night and left him.

"I'll be up early in the morning," she said laughingly. "Just to make
sure that my gold is there!"

An hour later Virginia Page, sitting fully dressed in the darkness of
her bedroom, got quietly to her feet