But Morrison interrupted:
"You've been squealing, have you? Well, you just go on, only remember this. If you're going to set in a little game of freeze-out, you play your cards close to your coat."
Luna saw the drift of Morrison's remarks, and hastened to defend himself.
"It's gospel truth. I haven't squealed." He gave a detailed account of his midnight interview with Firmstone, defining sharply between his facts and his inferences. He finally concluded: "The old man's sharp. There isn't a corner of the mine he doesn't know, and there isn't a chink in the mill, from the feed to the tail-sluice, that he hasn't got his eye on." Luna's mood changed from the defensive to the assertive. "I'll tell you one thing more. He's square, square as a die. He had me bunched, but he give me a chance. He told me that I could stop the stealing at the mill, that I had got to, and, by God, I'm going to, in spite of hell!"
Morrison was relieved, but a sneer buried the manifestation of his relief.
"Well," he exclaimed, "of all the soft, easy things I ever saw you're the softest and the easiest!"
Luna only looked dogged.
"Hard words break no bones," he answered, sullenly.
"That may be," answered Morrison; "but it doesn't keep soft ones from gumming your wits, that's sure."
"What do you mean?"