He stopped and ground the heel of his shoe in the damp sand. “I heard a man describe it oddly once. He likened life to a dog-pit. He called it an ‘arena,’ but he meant a dog-pit. And he said a man had to take hold with a bulldog’s grip to succeed. I thought it was horrible then, but somehow it comes back to me now.” “I never saw you in fighting mood before.” “Haven’t I had enough to make me so? To have that rich old miser take what belongs to me! It’s mine, and he knows it, and so does everybody else! And if he sneaks through this hole he’s found in the lease and takes my gold, he’s just as much a thief as if he’d broken into my house and stolen what didn’t belong to him! I don’t care if the law does back him up,--it’s dishonest trickery!” “Maybe you won’t be a millionaire, after all.” The girl’s face wore a blank expression. Then she suddenly brightened. “But millionaires always go through this sort of thing, don’t they? Mr. Palmer landed in San Francisco with only fifty cents in his pocket and chopped wood to earn his dinner. I’ve heard him tell about it lots of times. I think he’d rather talk about it than anything else in the world. Perhaps,” she glanced at Ben, “you’re too well dressed, Ben, to turn out a millionaire. Perhaps you ought to go barefooted, or, at least, wear ragged shoes first.” Her companion smiled. “Girls are always thinking of appearances,” he said. “But I think you had better give up the hope of my being a millionaire; that’s a fairy tale. If I make a few thousand out of this,--provided I can beat this old devil-fish,--I’ll be satisfied.” “I’d set my heart on a million,” she replied; “but if you’re satisfied, I ought to be. You think girls are funny to be always thinking of looks. How can we help it? We’re never really _in_ anything; we have to stand one side and see the boys do things.” “Fighting, for instance,” Ben remarked. They had retraced their steps, and were again at the entrance of the Works. Mundon still sat on the fence, thoughtfully gazing at the nailed gates. The mule was wistfully looking at them, too, with an injured air; as indeed was quite fitting in a tenant who had been evicted. “Good-night,” said Ben. “Don’t forget.” “I won’t,” Beth replied. Then she added in an undertone, “Don’t tell him,”--she indicated Mundon,--“that I’m going to listen.” She turned quickly away, before Ben had time to reply. Through the long hours of the night, as Ben sat in the shadow of a wall across the street from the Works, he had plenty of time for reflection. Although he had indignantly refused to believe the imputation against Mundon’s honesty, still it kept persistently recurring to him. “Can it be possible that he was in with that smuggling gang, and that fear of personal safety made him use me as a catspaw to inform on them?” he asked himself, but dismissed this as being highly improbable. Mundon’s surprise when the opium was discovered had been too genuine to be doubted.