"I'll risk that. Besides, there's such a thing as sending the nigger out of it... and the boy too." "Not much. Grit," Hayhurst interposed, with his glance on Van Bleit and his finger on the trigger. "If there's going to be any fun I'm in at the finish." Van Bleit gritted his teeth, and finding his hands free, looked eagerly round for a means of escape. There was none. Unarmed, he was helpless against these two. The horse, hitched to the tree, was too far away to reach, the cart was not much nearer. Before he could reach either Hayhurst would shoot him down. And if he missed, Lawless was armed and could not fail to hit him. He was like a rat in a trap in sight of the water in which he was to drown. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. Life was very sweet... And the letters! ... The loss of the letters would be almost as great a disaster as the loss of life. "It's not a bit of use," he muttered, as Lawless produced a fountain pen and held it out to him; "the Bank won't hand the packet over to anyone but myself, even if he tender the receipt." "Don't you exercise your mind as to what the Bank will or will not do," Lawless remarked. "What you have to think about is to obey orders. You'd better concentrate all your attention on that." Van Bleit took the pen. "You can't make me sign," he said. "I can't make you--no. But it amounts to this, if you refuse I send that nigger out of earshot and shoot you where you stand... And mind this, if you attempt any tricks the threat holds good. I know your signature. If you don't write it fair and square on this you're a dead man. You know me, Karl Van Bleit. I don't suppose you've any reason to imagine I shall go back on my word." He held the Bank's receipt for the safe deposit of the sealed packet of letters on the back of a notebook which he took from his pocket, keeping his hands upon it, and holding it firmly against his chest for Van Bleit's greater convenience in writing. Van Bleit hesitated. Only the knowledge that Tom Hayhurst's revolver would go off as an inevitable consequence prevented him having a struggle for the paper. "My patience is not inexhaustible. I give you one minute," Lawless said. The Dutchman started, raised his pen hand nervously, and again drew back. This was slow torture. "I'll sell to you... Give me a sum down," he muttered, thinking vainly of the handsome sum he had several times refused. "They won't part with the packet in exchange for this... But I'll sell it to you--for a sum down." Hayhurst chuckled. "Don't know when you're beaten, do you, old man?" "Write," was all Lawless vouchsafed... "Here, the discharge across the back." Van Bleit obeyed. He flung down the pen when he had finished with an oath. "I hope you are satisfied now," he remarked with great bitterness, as Lawless carefully placed the receipt in an envelope and slipped it inside his coat.