Old Broadbrim grated his teeth.
Merle Macray had come back, and it was fortunate that Old Danny's positiveness had prevented him from looking down into the pit, else he would have been discovered hugging the wall above the dark flood at the bottom of the well.
The detective breathed freer when the two vanished, but he took a startling oath in his prison.
He would triumph or die in the attempt to reach victory.
He would catch Merle Macray despite all his traps and schemes, he would show this cunning, red-handed murderer that he had not crossed the sea in vain.
But he was still in the toils—a death stairs overhead and underneath the waters of death.
"I didn't come here to die like a rat!" he cried. "I came for vengeance, and I'll be content with nothing else."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
DEMONA, THE RANCH QUEEN.