But no! Binnhart had declared they were too far outnumbered, that the enterprise was impracticable. And Binnhart had seemed slow and dazed, and himself the victim of surprise. Colty’s loose lips curled with bitter scorn as he recalled how owlishly wise Binnhart had looked when he had declared that he would try first the inside and then the outside of this pilaster from the ground floor, instead of at once essaying the capital,--but he did not know what a “capital” was,--nor, indeed, did the jovial “Colty” until he heard the word from Randal Ducie a few minutes ago. In fact, Binnhart did not know the difference between a “pillar” and a “pilaster,” except as the builder in Caxton had expounded the terms. Indeed, Binnhart, assuming to be a leader of men, should be better informed. Leader! He would lead them all to the penitentiary if they followed him much farther. It was an ill-omened association of ideas. Colty Connover began to wonder if any of the refugees from the _Cherokee Rose_ had acquired any knowledge of the search for the treasure prosecuted from without. He remembered how suddenly the sound of a woman’s screams had frightened the marauders from their occupation in what they had deemed the deepest solitude. If some woman had been sitting at this window she could easily have heard their unsuspecting talk. He looked down speculatively. Through the broken roof of the portico he could discern some of their abandoned tools still beside the base of the column. “Pilaster,” he sneered. The word had for him the tang of an opprobrious epithet. She could have heard everything. Had she, indeed, heard aught? Could she remember the names? She could doubtless recall “Colty.” That was within the scope of the meanest intelligence. He began to quail with the realization of disastrous possibilities. What woman was it, he wondered. The one in the phaëton? He hoped Binnhart might shoot her in the hold-up planned on the road. A pistol ball would tie her tongue if--if she had not already told all she knew! Yet what would his name signify? Only that he was one of the seekers who from time immemorial had ransacked the house for its treasure. Robbery, perhaps, in a way, yet what was so definitely abandoned to the will of the marauder could scarcely be esteemed in the pale of ownership. If only the gang had not left their insane victim bound and gagged, as evidence of their brutality. “Colonel Kenwynton will never rest till he ferrets out who done that job.” He winced and lifted one foot high, and let it down with a stamp. “I’d hate for the old Colonel to git on my track, sure,” he muttered.