"Damn it, Hype, listen! You know what'd happen then as well as I do. Suppose he did fix the pardons, even willingly. D'you think we'd ever get out here to this gold again? Never! We could never beat out the Chiswell interests." Garth, smiling thinly, looked straight at Prokle. "Sure, I realize that perfectly. You want the gold, sure. But to get it, and get away with it, you're going to have to dispose of Chiswell over there. And if you do that, there goes _my_ one chance of a pardon. Nice little stalemate, huh?" And Garth, as he watched his partner's indecision, was suddenly enjoying the grim stalemate. But Prokle wasn't. He stared sullenly at Garth for a moment, rubbed his chin and grumbled baffledly in his throat. Garth grinned back at him. Suddenly across to them came Chiswell's jumbled words again, this time tinged with fear: "Whispering, are you? I hear you over there, plotting. You just try it! ... rob me--no! ... ah-h-h! ... two of 'em! ... two ... no, you can't! ... it isn't fair, I'm all alone!" This time his voice ended in a little sob of terror, perhaps because he realized for the first time the odds against him; perhaps because he remembered that he'd thrown his gun away. Garth, from where he lay, reached out and threw a handful of dry matted lichen upon the fire. For only a few seconds it blazed up, to reveal Chiswell crouched before his cave, a wild sight, trembling and waiting. And it revealed something else. * * * * * "Look!" Again Prokle grabbed Garth's arm in his excitement. But Garth had seen it, too, within the cave behind Chiswell. Along the sides, only dimly discernible in outline, were masses of something that was not rock. Seemingly sacks of something. That was enough for Prokle; and Garth, too, was sure his own eyes were blazing as he tried not to let Prokle's fanaticism get him. "Can you beat that for luck?" Prokle was whispering. "He's started getting the gold out already! Or it's platinum maybe! Anyway it's going to save us a lot of time and work. Lord knows how _he_ ever expected to get it away from here, but--well, I guess I'd have started mining, too, if I was in his shoes. Come on, Hype, let's get over there!" Prokle had quite lost sight of the issue. Garth kept his own voice calm as he said: "Not yet; it'll wait. Well, which is it going to be?" Prokle was still staring over at the cave. Now he looked back at Garth. "Which--what did you say?" "I said: what happened to our little stalemate? You know, the one we were at a moment ago?" The light in Prokle's eyes died. "But--but Hype--you can't be serious--to pass up this?" "I've got to pass it up, pal. You know that all the wealth on this rock couldn't buy my freedom! There's my passport to freedom, crouching over there in front of that cave. And he's got to stay alive." Prokle was becoming angry. "You're--you're just exaggerating!" Garth merely shook his head, smiling wryly.