"You paid that to the miners for it?"
"We pay fifty per cent. of what is coming to the men as soon as a rough assay is made, the other fifty after we get the smelter returns. That wagon load of ore is worth—unless I miss my guess badly—about sixty thousand dollars."
"Dear me. So much as that?" She could not quite keep a note of sarcasm out of her voice. "And have you it in a safety deposit vault?"
His cool gaze took her in quietly. He was willing to bet his last dollar on her loyalty, and it was like him to back his judgment in one wild throw. "Not exactly. It is lying in a pile of hay in my barn, all sacked up ready for shipment."
"Waiting there for anybody that wants it," she suggested.
"For anybody that wants it worse than I do," he corrected, the fighting gleam in his eyes.
"I've a right to ask one thing of you—that there will be no bloodshed to-night because of what I have told you."
"There will be none of my seeking," he replied grimly.
"No. That's not enough. You must find a way to avoid it."
"By handing over my hard-earned dishonest profits to the virtuous Verinder?" he asked dryly.