The soul of the real James Harding peered out through his half-closed eyes for a fleeting instant, but the veil was drawn again before one might note the levin-flash of triumph. “I did what you wanted me to: told him I’d got to go and look after my mine.” “What excuse did you make for taking him home?” “Told him he shouldn’t ought to be out so late. He’ll do anything for me, that young fellow will.” “Yes, that is very evident,” Brant commented dryly. Then, “What else did you say to him?” Again the levin-flash of triumph, but Brant did not see it. “Nothing; you didn’t tell me to say anything else to him.” “No more I didn’t. Well, all you have to do now is to keep out of his way--and mine. Here is your money. Take it and make yourself scarce.” The roll of bills changed hands, and Harding made sure of the price before he spoke again. Then he squared himself against his side of the table and asked if he might have his weapons. “Deverney has them--all but the gun. I think I shall keep that as a souvenir.” Harding nodded assent, and the shifty eyes were veiled. “That’s all right; keep it, and welcome. I’d have made you a present of it if you had asked me for it.” He was picking nervously at the tablecloth, and a curious change--a change in which sullen hardihood gave place to something not so easily definable--came over him as he went on: “And about young Langford: I would have turned him loose long ago if I had known you wanted me to; honest to God, I would! You have had it in for me for a good many years, George, but there hasn’t been a day in any one of them when I wouldn’t do anything you asked--and more.” Brant’s acknowledgment of all this was a contemptuous curl of the lip, and Harding tried again. “It’s so, and you know it. We’ve scrapped a good deal, first and last, but if I’ve been the jackal, you’ve been the wolf. I’ve been thinking a good bit in the last hour or so, and I’m going to say what’s in me. Why can’t we quit square, for once? I haven’t got anything against you; and it seems like after what has happened you ought to be willing to let up on me.” “Oh, it does, does it?” Brant was looking now, and he saw the fear signals flying in the shifty eyes. He was as yet no more than a catechumen in the temple of mercy, as he was learning to his cost, and the man-quelling demon was once more in possession. So he backslid promptly into the prerepentant barbarism and gave another twist to the thumbscrews. “That means that you want something more, I suppose. What is it? Out with it.” “The papers, George--the affidavits you got against me up in Taggett’s Gulch. I haven’t had a good night’s rest since I found out you had ’em, so help me God, I haven’t! Wherever I go, and whatever I do, I can feel that cursed hangman’s knot pulling up under my ear. For Christ’s sake, give ’em to me, George! Don’t send me to hell before my time!”