Yet the rock pile was in reality a solid, arched covering for the sloped entrance to another cave, in the mouth of which Jack Huntley lay sweating with the pain of his wound, as frenziedly malevolent as a rattler pinned under a rock. Kneeling facing each other with the wounded man gasping curses between them, Abington and Bill Jonathan locked glances; Abington’s eyes coldly searching; Bill’s defiant, hurt and trying to cover a certain wistfulness he would have denied with much profanity. “He’s got to clear me with the law!” Bill said between clenched jaws. “He’s the only man on earth that can do it. He pulled the robbery they laid onto me and if he don’t come clean I’ll kill him inch by inch!” * * * * * Jack Huntley turned his head and sent a glance to Bill’s face; shifted his eyes to Abington’s, that were black as ebony and quite as hard; turned again to Bill and met a cold stare that shriveled his courage to whining cowardice. “Don’t you, Bill! I--I’m done for! You can’t hurt a dying man! You wouldn’t have the heart!” “Oh, wouldn’t I?” Bill’s laugh was in itself a threat. “Say! I got about as much heart as them stone men we’re after. You wait and see how much heart I’ve got for you--you hound!” “It’s murder!” Jack Huntley’s voice rose to a shriek. “You wouldn’t stand by and see him kill a man that--that’s all shot up--” His eyes turned glassily to Abington. “Why shouldn’t I?” Never had Abington’s voice been more casually brutal. “You’re going to die anyway, you know.” “Yeah, and you won’t die so darned peaceful, either,” Bill added darkly. “Of course you can save yourself a good deal of suffering,” Abington pointed out in his calm professional tone, “by writing a full confession. In that case I should feel obliged to protect you from Bill’s vengeful nature.” “It’s worse than Injuns!” Huntley cried, his fear rising to panic. “Not if you write the truth,” Abington pointed out, taking from an inner pocket a water-warped notebook. “Here’s a fountain pen which may contain enough ink, unless you wax overeloquent. Write the truth, Huntley. I’ll take care of Bill.” “You’ll have a hell of a time, professor, if he don’t clean his dirty soul right down to the bottom!” “I’ll have to be raised up,” whined the sick man, darting furtive glances here and there as if, even yet, he hoped by some miracle to escape. “For legal purposes,” Abington directed, holding Huntley up and giving Bill a quelling look, “begin like this: ‘I, Jack Huntley, of sound mind--and of my own free will--do hereby confess--that on the--’” It was Bill himself who named the date, snapping the words out with a savage click of the teeth. CHAPTER XIII--A CLEVER IDEA