With his cowardly heart knocking against his ribs, Toby Sam began a stealthy movement toward the sleeping man. Only his wild anxiety to possess those emeralds could thus have urged him on. A mouse advancing could not have made less noise. Within five minutes the deed was done; Toby Sam had felt over the body of the sleeping man, and had possessed himself of the buckskin bag that had bulged the inner pocket of Black John’s coat. Black John awoke, with a snort, before Toby Sam had gone ten yards in his sly retreat. Perhaps some dim recognition of what had happened had come to disturb him. He rolled over, stretched out his arms, breathed heavily, and then sat up. Toby Sam had become as silent as the very ground on which he lay, and his body seemed no more than a portion of it. Black John did not at once discover the loss of the buckskin bag; but, being uneasy, he rose and walked away from the cave, swinging his revolver, and peering out along the slopes where the cloud-dimmed moonlight lay. Toby Sam took advantage of this to worm along several yards farther; but again he lay still when Black John returned to the mouth of the cave. Then Black John discovered that the bag of emeralds was gone. It was so unbelievable a thing that at first he felt in his other pockets, thinking he must have misplaced it. Then a great but subdued oath ripped from his lips. He ran to the mouth of the cave, and peered in. Worn out, the girl was asleep, close by the entrance. Black John stooped down, plucked her by the hair, and, with a jerk that awoke her and brought from her a scream of pain and fright, he pulled her to her feet. Toby Sam was sliding away with eellike silence and speed. “Hand over them emeralds!” Black John demanded of the terrified girl, as he pulled her out of the cave, ignoring, in his rage, the danger which would come from the screams that she uttered. He threw her down on the ground and kicked her. “Hand over them emeralds!” he cried, standing above her. “Hand ’em over!” She screamed again, and put up her hands. “You thought you’d play a cute trick on me, eh? Thought you’d sneak ’em out o’ my pocket, and then maybe, hide ’em, and pretend to be asleep when I looked in on ye? Hand ’em over!” “I haven’t got them; I don’t know----” “Oh, ye don’t!” he drew his revolver. “This’ll help you to recklect! Hand ’em over!” Toby Sam dislodged a stone in his sinuous flight, and it went rolling down the hillside. Hearing it, Black John turned around with a jump of surprise, and stared in the direction of the sound. Suddenly he felt that perhaps he had not been robbed by the girl, but that some one else was the thief. With revolver in hand he began to move in the direction of that sound, peering on before him. But Toby Sam was still as crafty as ever. He had wormed into a black hole, and there he lay, doubled up like an opossum shamming death, and with no more sound. Black John came within a yard of him, and did not see him.