or had slowly
pieced together; how the gold was mined in the ranges south of Siberia,
carried in green skins to lower Mongolia, melted there and taken for
trade Southwest across the El-Khali to an immense Babylon of Commerce of
which the present Mecca is perhaps a decadent residuum.

"I put it all in; the accessibility of this desert from the coast
on three sides, how the old caravan route parallels the thirty-third
meridian and how Charlie struck it four hundred miles out into the
desert in a hundred miles travel due south in longitude between 50 and
55 degrees; all the details of Tavor's hunt for the wreck of one of
these treasure caravans.

"Old Nute looked at me with his little hard eyes slipping about.

"'And he didn't find it?' he said.

"I didn't answer that. I went ahead and told him how I found Tavor and
the shape he was in, and then I added, 'I'm not an explorer, and Charlie
can't go back.'

"Old Nute's thick neck shot out at that.

"'Then he did find it?' he said.

"'Now look here, Nute,' I said, 'you're not trading with Tavor on this
deal. You're trading with me and I'm just as slick as you are. You'll
get no chance to slip under on this. You forget all I've told you just
as though it had nothing to do with what I'm going to tell you, and I'll
come to the point.'

"'Forget it?' he said.

"'Yes,' I said, 'forget it. I'm not going to put you on to what Charlie
knows, with any strings to it, or with any pointers that you can run
down without us. I've told you all about Tavor's big hunt through the
Shamo and the El-Khali for a purpose of my own and not for the purpose
of enabling you to locate the thing that Charlie Tavor knows about.'

"Hardman's voice went down into a low note. 'What does he know?' he
said.

"I looked him squarely in the little reptilian eyes. 'He knows where
there is a treasure in gold equal in our money to three hundred thousand
dollars!'

"Old Nute's little eyes focused into his nose an instant. Then he took a
chance at me.

"'What's the country like?'

"I went on as though I didn't see the drift.

"'Tavor says this area of the earth's surface is a great plain
practically level, sloping gradually on one side and rising gradually on
the other.'

"'Sand?' said Nute.

"'No,' I replied, 'Tavor says that contrary to the common notion, this
plain is not covered with sand, it's a kind of chalk deposit.'

"'Hard to get to?'

"Old Nute shot the query in with a little quick