Deveril was as tense as a finely drawn steel wire. Again she marked that hard glint in his dark eyes. "It is up to you to do the telling!" he shot back at her. "I stood back there in the trees; I saw that damned henchman of his and Mexicali Joe come up to you! Joe, I've been following for days! I had no rifle; no weapon of any kind and both Standing and Winch were armed. But I could watch! Joe was terribly excited; I saw his waving arms. I heard him yelling...." "Yes," said Lynette. "And then?" "And then?" exclaimed Deveril. "What then? You know what we came for, don't you? You as well as I?" "Yes! I know...." He caught at her hand. "Come! On the run. Before that madman gets back. We'll clean up on the whole crowd of them!" But she jerked her hand away. "There are certain things I don't understand.... Did you see the other night when he took Mexicali Joe out of their hands?" "I saw; yes. It happened that I had just overhauled them at that minute! I could have cried for rage! He had a rifle, damn him, and was aching to use it! They laid down before him like pups...." "_And you?_" "What could I do, with a rotten stick in my hands!" She looked up at him curiously. "And, to-day?" "To-day?" His hands hardened in his grip upon his club. "To-day, I tell you, I followed them into your camp and I saw. Mexicali Joe...." "You are after Mexicali Joe's gold, Babe Deveril?" "As you are! That brought us both into Big Pine in the beginning and then into the rest of it." "And you were ... afraid to come into camp while Bruce Standing was still here?" He laughed at her, the old light laughter of debonair Babe Deveril. "Afraid? Call it that if you like." He shrugged carelessly. "Yet, with an oak club against a man with a modern rifle...." "Do you remember the last time? How he threw his rifle away?" Deveril flushed hotly. "Some day," he muttered, "when it's an even break...." "What do you want with me, Babe Deveril?" He stared at her. "Want with you? I want you to come, to be free from this Timber-Wolf. Is he coming back soon?" "I think so." "Then hurry. Lynette...." "Well?" "Are you coming?" She stooped over Thor. "No," she said quietly. "_What!_ After all this.... You're not coming?" "No!" "But.... Then why?" he demanded with a sudden flare of anger. "For one thing," she told him without looking up, "because I told him that I would wait for him. For another...." "And that is?..." She only shook her head, brown hair tumbling about her hidden face. "I'll stay with old Thor," she said. She had him cast away among the lost isles of bewilderment. "But you'll tell me.... You and I have been friends; we've stood side by side...." He broke off to demand: "You'll tell me about Mexicali Joe's gold?" "Gold?" she said. "Is gold the greatest thing in life?" "But you know?" "Yes! I know."