"You damned----" Larry spluttered the words, but Northrup raised his hand as if staying further waste of time. He hated to take too great an advantage of a caged man. "Of course, Rivers," he said, "I wouldn't have broken into your house and read your letters if there wasn't something rather big-sized at stake. So do not switch off on a siding--let's get through with this." The tone and words were like a dash of icy water; Rivers moistened his lips and sank, mentally, into that position he loathed and yet could not escape. Someone was again getting control of him. He might writhe and strain, but he was caught once more--caught! caught! "In God's name," he whispered, "who are you, anyway? What are you after?" "That's what I'm here to tell you, Rivers." "Go ahead then, go ahead!" Larry again moistened his dry lips--he felt that he was choking. He was ready to turn state's evidence as soon as he saw an opportunity. Debonair and clever, crafty and unfaithful, Larry had but one clear thought--he would not go behind bars again if one avenue of escape remained open! Maclin--Maclin's secret business, loomed high, but at that moment Mary-Clare held no part in his desperate fear. "What do you want?" Then, as if falling into his mood, Northrup said calmly: "First, I want the Point." Larry's jaw dropped; but he felt convinced that it was Maclin or he who faced destruction and he meant to let Maclin suffer now as Maclin had once permitted him to suffer. If there was dirty work at the mines Maclin should pay. That was justice--Maclin had made a tool of him. "I don't own the Point." Rivers heard his own voice as if from a distance. He had Mary-Clare's word that she would help him; the letter had done its overpowering work, but he had left confession and detail until later. Mary-Clare had pleaded for time, and he had come from her with his business unsettled. "I think after we've finished with our talk you can prevail upon your wife to sell the Point to me and say nothing about it." Rivers clutched the edge of the table. To his inflamed brain Northrup seemed to know all and everything--he dared not haggle. "Who are you?" he repeated stammeringly. "What right have you to break into my place and read my papers? All I want to know is, what right have you? I cannot be expected to--to come to terms unless I know that. I should think you might see that." The bravado was so pitiful and weak that Northrup barely repressed a laugh.