been near to
some such desperate culmination. The sacrifice offered to him was not,
therefore, so great as it might have seemed. The knowledge of this
might have given him a momentary superiority over his antagonist had
Scranton's motive been a purely selfish or malignant one, but as it was
not, and as he may have had some instinctive idea of Farendell's feeling
also, it made his ultimatum appear the more passionless and fateful.
And it was this quality which perhaps caused Farendell to burst out with
desperate abruptness,--

"What in h-ll ever put you up to this!"

Scranton folded his arms upon Farendell's desk, and slowly wiping his
clean jaw with one hand, repeated deliberately, "Wall--I reckon I told
ye that before! You've been making us--me and Duffy--tired!" He paused
for a moment, and then, rising abruptly, with a careless gesture towards
the uncovered tray of gold, said, "Come! ye kin take enuff o' that to
get away with; the less ye take, though, the less likely you'll be to be
followed!"

He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A strange light, as of
a lurid storm interspersed by sheet-like lightning, filled the outer
darkness, and the silence was now broken by dull crashes and nearer
cries and shouting. A few figures were also dimly flitting around the
neighboring empty offices, some of which, like Farendell's, had been
entered by their now alarmed owners.

"You've got a good chance now," continued Scranton; "ye couldn't hev a
better. It's a big fire--a scorcher--and jest the time for a man to wipe
himself out and not be missed. Make tracks where the crowd is thickest
and whar ye're likely to be seen, ez ef ye were helpin'! Ther' 'll be
other men missed tomorrow beside you," he added with grim significance;
"but nobody'll know that you was one who really got away."

Where the imperturbable logic of the strange man might have failed,
the noise, the tumult, the suggestion of swift-coming disaster, and
the necessity for some immediate action of any kind, was convincing.
Farendell hastily stuffed his pockets with gold and the papers he had
found, and moved to the door. Already he fancied he felt the hot
breath of the leaping conflagration beyond. "And you?" he said, turning
suspiciously to Scranton.

"When you're shut of this and clean off, I'll fix things and leave
too--but not before. I reckon," he added grimly, with a glance at the
sky, now streaming with sparks like a meteoric shower, "thar won't b