Gold! He stopped at his own words, his eyes flying wide open. During these later hours, fleeing from Brodie's men, stumbling upon Gloria, swirled away by mad longings, he had not thought of gold. But here was King's camp; straight here had King come after Gloria had brought him her father's message and old Honeycutt's secret. Then the gold was here! The cupidity which in the man never slept long was awake on the instant. He began looking about him eagerly. King was gone? Then not for men to bring help to Gloria but to aid him in carrying off the gold. Having brought Gloria here so that she could not tell others what she knew, he left her here with the same purpose; so Gratton would have done! King would have hidden it here; at least some of it. He began questing feverishly, shuffling about in the shadows while Gloria, busy with her plans for moving, wondered at him. He was striking matches, running back and forth; she could hear his mutterings. And presently, when Gloria had called and he had not heard, he came upon the bag which King had meant to take out with him that day the horse was lost. He hovered over it; he struck other matches, he came hastening back dragging it after him.
He went down on his knees by the sack, got a heavy lump in his hands, rubbed at it, held it closer to the firelight, rubbed again more excitedly, and finally sat back, staring up at her with new flames of another sort leaping in his eyes.
"It's next thing to solid gold!" he gasped. "There are thousands—thousands——Millions!"
She looked at him and marvelled. In his shallow soul no emotion lived long; greed of gold now obliterated the little ripples that another greed had fleetingly made. How had she thought well of him down in the city? How had she so much as tolerated him? On the instant it struck her that there was small justice in Gratton reaping any reward, having done nothing to earn it. "We have the things to move. Come; hurry."
"Why should we move, after all?" he demanded sharply. "Now that I have got up here, why not stay? There's wood here; everything is fixed up after a fashion. King would know where to send for us, and—and those cursed dogs of Brodie's would never think of looking up here, even if chance did lead them along the gorge."
Gloria, recalling King's warning, remembering Brodie's brute face, said hastily:
"Do you think there is any real danger that they will come this way?"
"I hope not," he groaned. "They couldn't follow my trail if they tried to. You see, I left them last night, as early as I dared; I struck out in a straight line down the slope; then I made a turn off to the side and along the ridge where there was but little snow. By now all those tracks are wiped out, what with wind and new snow. There's nothing to lead them this way."
"Then, if we go down quickly, if we get your bag of food and put out the fire down there, and come right back up, it won't be very long before our tracks will be gone. And we'll not budge from here until help comes. Come; let's hurry."
"Coming," said Gratton. "Yes; we must hurry."