egon job, he knew why he was being
bribed to go away. You let us in for this: you've got to muzzle him,
some way."

The MacMorrogh looked at his remaining brother meaningly. "'Tis up to
you, this time, Mickey, b'y. Find your way over to the minin' camp this
night, and make a clane job av it.'"

Penfield was moving uneasily in his chair. The plotting waters were
deepening swiftly, much too swiftly for him. Loyalty to his superior
officer, the unquestioning loyalty that disregards motives entirely and
does not look too closely at methods, was his fetish. But these men
were not merely loyal to Mr. North. They were criminals--he stuck at the
word, but there was no other--fighting for their own hand.

"I guess--I guess I'd better go back to the Nadia," he stammered, trying
to keep his voice steady. "Mr. Colbrith may need me."

Eckstein turned on him like a snarling animal.

"No you don't, Arthur, my boy. I know you like a book. You stay here
till you're in as deep as the rest of us. Like Merriam, you know too
damned much."

Penfield sat still, with the cold chills running up and down his spine,
while Eckstein went on talking to the two MacMorroghs.

"This Merriam business complicates things like hell"--he was growing
coarsely profane in the grinding mill of events. "But it shows us where
we stand. This thing has got to go through, and if it doesn't work out
the way we've planned it, it's for us to find another way."

"There's always the wan other way," said the elder MacMorrogh slowly.
"'Tis but a drunken fight in wan o' the camps, and Ford tryin' to stop
it, as he always does: a bit of a shindy among the b'ys, and this--"
crooking his forefinger suggestively.

"Bah!" said Eckstein. "You fellows ought to have lived in the stone age,
when a man pulled his enemy to pieces with his bare hands. If it comes
to that, there are easier ways--and safer. A premature blast in a rock
cut; a weak coupling-pin when he happens to be standing in the way of a
pulling engine: they tell me he is always indifferent to his personal
safety. But never mind the fashion of it; the point I'm making is that
if everything else fails, Ford mustn't live to be the head-foreman of
the outfit."

Penfield's face was ashen, and he was cravenly thankful that the
lamplight was dim, and that his chair was in the shadow. This was more
than he had bargained for; more by the price of a man's life.

Eckstein was lifting himself by painful inches from hi