Caspar stirred.
“You swear to get out an’ leave me free?”
“On those terms, yes.”
“Then you can have the yarn.”
“The simple facts?”
“Yes—curse you!”
The malevolent fury in the man’s final curse was the epitome of all his pent feeling. McLagan was his one object of insane hate. And he was driven to bend before his will. He knew the desperate nature of the thing he was doing. He knew the risk of it all. The evidence he was about to put into his hated enemy’s hand. But he knew, being the man he was, and with shackles on his wrists, that it was his only chance. So he yielded. But his yielding had only come with his recognition that the shackles holding him were the official shackles of the United States Government, and must clearly have been put into the hands of these men for their present purpose.
Julian Caspar was still sitting on his piled blankets. McLagan was still leaning against the doorway with his gun in evidence. Len Stern was propped, as before, where the cotton hung loose from the window framing. The monotonous tones of the prisoner’s voice broke up the stillness of the atmosphere of the place. He had been talking for some time. He was not looking at his captors. His dead eyes were on the log wall in front of him. And his gaze suggested a mind reviewing in sequence a series of pictures which gave him not a moment of mental unease. He was transferring his stock at a price. And only was it the payment of the price for which he was concerned.