Prepared though he was for an outburst of fury, he was amazed at the torrent of blasphemous oaths which Moran uttered. He caught Wade's name, but the rest was mere incoherence, so wildly mouthed and so foul that he began to wonder if torture had unbalanced the man's mind. The expression of Moran's eyes, which had become mere slits in his inflamed and puffy face, showed that for the time he was quite beyond himself. What with his blued skin and distended veins, his puffed lips and slurred speech, he seemed on the brink of an apoplectic seizure. Rexhill watched him anxiously. "Come, come, man. Brace up," he burst out, at length. "You'll kill yourself, if you go on that way. Be a man." The words seemed to have their effect, for the agent made a supreme effort at the self-control which was seldom lacking in him. He appeared to seize the reins of self-government and to force himself into a state of unnatural quiet, as one tames a frantic horse. "The safe!" he muttered hoarsely, scrambling to his feet. His stiffened legs still refused to function, however, and Rexhill, hastening to the safe, threw open the door. One glance at the disordered interior told him the whole story. Moran watched feverishly as he dragged the crumpled papers out on the floor and pawed through them. "Gone?" "Gone!" They looked at each other, a thin tide of crimson brightening the congestion of Moran's visage, while Rexhill's face went ghastly white. With shaking fingers, the agent poured himself a third drink and tossed it down his throat. "It was Wade who tied you up?" Moran nodded. "Him and that--girl--the Purnell girl." Stirred more by the other's expression of contempt than by the full half pint of whiskey he had imbibed, he crashed his fist down on the desk. "Mind what you say now, because, by God, I'm in no mood to take anything from you. He got the drop on me, you understand. Let it go at that." "It's gone right enough--all gone." Rexhill groaned. "Why, he only needs to publish those plots to make this a personal fight between us and every property owner in the valley. They'll tar and feather us, if they don't kill us outright. It'll be gold with them--gold. Nothing else will count from now on." "I'll get back at him yet!" growled Moran. "You'll...." The Senator threateningly raised his gorilla-like arms, but let them drop helplessly again. "How did they get into the safe? Did you leave it open?" "Do you think I'm a fool?" Moran fixed his baleful eyes upon his employer, as he leaned heavily, but significantly, across the flat desk. "Say, let's look ahead to to-morrow, not back to last night. Do you hear? I'll do the remembering of last night; you forget it!"