to tackle a bank job if one should
come your way. Do you happen to have the mark of blood against you,
too?"

"I don't suppose there is any mark that I haven't got."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Well, I wouldn't stay in a house if I wanted to get out when a live man
stood in my way, if that is what you mean."

The woman turned to Handsome quite suddenly.

"What time do you start?" she asked of him; and he replied, as if the
question were a continuance of their conversation:

"I ought to start now--inside of ten minutes."

"Very good," she said. "Take Dago with you. Break him in. Let him have
the worst of it. If he makes good, all right. If he doesn't--shoot him."

"All right," said Handsome cheerfully. "What about the others? There are
two more out there near the tracks."

"I will attend to them. Go, now. Take this man with you. Give him all
the rope he needs--but watch him. I'd sooner trust him with you than
anybody else, anyhow--and I believe he is all right."

"Come!" said Handsome, seizing Nick by the arm; and he pulled him
through the door after him. But all the way to the door, Nick kept his
eyes upon the woman, who was looking at him strangely, and with a
curious smile on her face.

Outside, when they had passed the sentinel, and were again in the part
which led to the other glade, he stopped.

"Wait a minute, Handsome," he said. "I want to ask you a question."

"There isn't time now, Dago. Save it until later. We must get away from
here at once. Do you remember where we left the boat?"

"Yes."

"Go there alone, and wait there for me. I won't be three minutes."

He did not await a reply, but darted off to one side as soon as they
reached the glade, and Nick saw him disappear inside one of the cabins
before referred to.

"I am in for it now, to the whole length of the tether," he told
himself, as he stepped briskly forward toward the place where he knew
the boat to be; and he was halfway across the glade when suddenly from
one of the groups of men near a fire, one of them leaped up and
confronted him, with his hands upon his hips, a cigar pointed at an
angle in the corner of his mouth, and a leering grin upon his face.

"Where to now, my pal?" he demanded, standing in front of Nick, and thus
stopping him.

Nick looked at the man, and smiled. He did not answer. He guessed
instantly why Handsome had left him to find his way to the boat alone.
This was doubtless one of their tricks--t