The square of daylight above was cut off, and in a moment the ex-banker stood beside his guide.
“Now come down this way,” said Pole, and with the torch held high he led the way into a part of the chamber where the rock overhead sloped, down lower. Here lay some old whiskey-barrels, two or three lager-beer kegs, and the iron hoops of several barrels that had been burned. There were several one-gallon jugs with corn-cob stoppers. Pole swept his hand over them with a laugh. “If you was a drinkin' man, I could treat you to a thimbleful or two left in them jugs,” he said, almost apologetically.
“But I don't drink, Baker,” Craig said. His premonition of danger seemed to have returned to him, and to be driven in by the dank coolness of the cavern, the evidence of past outlawry around him.
Pole heaped his pieces of pine against a rock, and added to them the chunks of some barrel-staves, which set up a lively popping sound like a tiny fusillade of artillery.
“You see that rock behind you, Mr. Craig?” asked Pole. “Well, set down on it. Before we go any furder, me'n you've got to have a understanding.”
The old man stared hesitatingly for an instant, and then, after carefully feeling of the stone, he complied.
“I thought we already—but, of course,” he said, haltingly, “I'm ready to agree to anything that 'll make you feel safe.”
“I kinder 'lowed you would,'' and to Craig's overwhelming astonishment Pole drew a revolver from his hip-pocket and looked at it, twirling the cylinder with a deft thumb.
“You mean, Baker—'' But Craig's words remained unborn in his bewildered brain. The rigor of death itself seemed to have beset his tongue. A cold sweat broke out on him.
“I mean that I've tuck the trouble to fetch you heer fer a purpose, Mr. Craig, an' thar ain't any use in beatin' about the bush to git at it.”