"Glom it!" Gelle advised grimly, but Delkin shook his head. "No--all we want is our own. Well, no use putting back the rubbish, is there? If they come here at all, they're bound to find out the bank's property has disappeared. And if we have any luck at all, they'll never get back here. Jelly, do you want to carry the gold?" "I should smile!" Gelle grinned widely to prove it as he held open the grain sack. "Any chances the gold might some of it rub off on m' shirt? How much is they, Mr. Delkin?" "A little over twelve thousand dollars, according to the books. Brad's carrying three times as much; yes, Brad's got forty thousand dollars right there in his hands." "Yeah?" Gelle cast a mildly disdainful glance at the package of bank notes which Bradley was stowing away in a bag. "Mebbe so, but it shore don't carry the same thrill as what this gold money packs. That why you left all that money in the keg?" He turned, shoulders slightly bent under his load, and stared at the emptied powder kegs, and at the one which was not empty. "It shore is a crime to leave all that good money there," he complained. "Chances are Palmer stole it, anyway. Me, I don't believe the old hellion ever did get an honest dollar in his life. It'd burn his fingers." "But that doesn't give us any right to it," Delkin told him firmly. "Some one is liable to come on a long lope to see how about it. You fellows go ahead; I'll bring up the rear. And remember, that open stretch down there is in plain sight of the stables, so you'd better take it on the trot." Gelle did better than that; he sprinted for the bushes ahead of the other three, got hung up in the wire fence because he tried to crawl through without slipping the sack of coin to the ground, and so caught a barb fast in the canvas and had to be helped by Bud, who overtook him while he was still wriggling like an impaled bug. Delkin, Bradley and Stauffer went on and were jubilating in hushed voices with Kline when the Meadowlark contingent arrived. They stood apart from the old man, who still snored comfortably with his lips puffed out through his thin whiskers. Bud's capture was likely to prove embarrassing. "What'll we do?" Bradley asked impatiently. "Can't turn him loose here--and Kline says he's been asleep all this while, so he doesn't know yet we've come on to the scene. Jelly, can't you stay right here and watch him for a while--till Bud comes back?" Gelle stood with the sack of gold between his feet, as if he meant to protect it from all claimants, and stared glumly from one to the other. "I can, yes. But I shore hate to like hell," he admitted sourly. "You'll go awn in an' have a scrap, chances are, an' I'll be settin' here like a knot on a log, watchin' this ole pelican's whiskers wave in and out. Excitin', ain't it? Damn fine way to spend an afternoon! When it comes to thinkin' up things fer me to do, you shore have got bright idees!"