stared at him. "I thought--I thought--you were dead," she
murmured. Her voice sounded far away to her. It was scarcely a whisper.

"So it seems!" Morgan Pell answered, his lip curling. "My dear, I regret to
disappoint you. But aside from a slight pain in my head, I was never better
in my whole life!" He wanted to see the effect of his words.

"Shall I bandage your wound for you?" his dutiful wife asked.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Thank you--no," he said.

Lucia sat down on the other side of the table.

Not a word more was said. Pell took out his own handkerchief, and started
to dip it in the bowl of water. But he was shaking still, and the piece of
linen dropped to the floor. He stooped to pick it up. As he did so, he saw,
in the dim light, the option lying exactly where Pancho Lopez had tossed
it. He grasped it in his hand, crushed and crumpled as it was, and thought
no one had observed him. But Uncle Henry's eagle eye had seen his movement.

"What's that?" he called out.

Pell tried to seem unconcerned. "The option, my dear sir," he answered
truthfully.

"By gollies, he's got it again!" Uncle Henry yelled, in desperation. He
switched his chair around, and faced Gilbert. "Why didn't you tear it up
while he was dead?" he asked.

Pell addressed Uncle Henry. "You've got ten thousand dollars of my money,"
he firmly said.

"_I_ have?"

"I want it," was the other's immediate reply.

"It was paid me for a debt," the old man said.

"It was stolen from me first," Morgan Pell stated, calmly. "Come across."
He put one hand out. The other still held the cloth to his wounded
forehead.

"I'll be cussed if I will!" the invalid cried. He clapped his hands over
his vest pocket, where the money was safely hidden.

"Why, you poor old crook--" Pell began, rose, and snatched the money from
Uncle Henry before anyone knew what he was doing. All his old fire was
back. He seemed the most alive man in the room.

Uncle Henry cried out, wildly, "Hey, ain't there no Americans present?" He
saw Gilbert's gun which was on the seat beneath the stairway. He was close
enough to grasp it. He did so, pointed it at the room in general, and
yelled, "Now I got yuh! Hands up, everybody!"

But no one moved. A disdainful silence followed. "Didn't yuh hear what I
said?" Uncle Henry inquired, looking at everybody.

"Put that down," said Hardy contemptuously. "You might hurt somebody," he
added, smiling.

"Ain't yuh goin