"Yes, I did say so; and, lacking your own evidence against yourself, it will condemn him yet. Had you thought of that?"
"Mr. Denby, I have answered your questions because you had a right to ask them. To the public I shall neither deny nor affirm."
"Then you'll have the choice of posing as a scoundrel on the one hand, or of consenting to the death or imprisonment of a measurably innocent man on the other. I don't envy you."
"It is my own affair, as you were good enough to say yesterday. Do you wish to withdraw your proposal?"
Denby took time to think about it, pacing out his decision what time the moon was beginning to silver the western snow-caps.
"No; as I have made it and you have accepted it, the proposal is merely a matter of service to be rendered and paid for; I furnish the capital to work the mine for a year for a certain portion of the output. But if you had taken me up on the original proposition, I should beg to be excused. Under the circumstances, I shouldn't care to be a joint owner with you."
"You couldn't be," said Jeffard briefly; "you, nor any one else."
"Well, we are agreed as to that. Shall we go now? Donald is waiting, and the moon will be up by the time we strike the trail."
"One moment; I have left something in the tunnel."
Jeffard turned back toward the timbered archway, and the promoter went with him. In the act a shadowy figure darted into the mouth of gloom and was seen by Denby.