"Now's our chance," whispered Deveril. "None too good, but the best we're going to have! Ready?" And her whisper came back to him, "Always ready!" "Now," he whispered. "Off to the right; slow and quiet; if once we can snake across this open place and into the timber over there...." "And now, Señor Joe," came Taggart's voice, and they knew from the sound that Taggart, mouth full, was eating ravenously, "we got you!" "Sure you got me," Joe rasped out at him, and still there remained defiance in little Mexicali Joe. "Fine! But what you do with me? You can't eat me, an' nobody ever yet put any bounty on my hide, an' when you got me ... you no got nothin'. An', _cabrone_, what I got I keep him!" Taggart laughed at him in Taggart's ugly style. "Talk big, little hombre, while you can! And now let me tell you something: To-night, right now, inside ten minutes, you're going to tell me just exactly where you got that stuff you spilled out of your pocket last night. And in the morning, bright and early, you're going to take me there!" "I die firs'!" "You'll be a long time dying! Think I'm fool enough to kill you ... now? Know what the third degree is, Joe?" Taggart's voice was terrible with its insinuation. "Me, when I give the third degree to any man, he spills his guts before I'm done with him! You'll cough up everything you know and be damn glad afterward to crawl off in the woods and die! That's me, Joe." Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching Mexicali Joe's expression, laughed. After him Cliff Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe began cursing nervously. "Ready?" whispered Lynette. Taggart's threats horrified her and set her trembling. "No!... Don't you see? Taggart will make him tell everything he knows, if he has to knock his teeth out one by one and break every bone in his body! And I'm going to hear!... You crawl ahead while there's a chance; I can up and run for it after you if I have to." She was silent. There was excitement in his utterance and another quality which sent a sudden chill to her heart. She stared at him through the dark as at a stranger; the gold fever was rampant in his veins, and she knew that he would lie here, never lifting hand or voice, while Taggart tortured his captive until Joe shrieked out his golden secret. Before Lynette could speak or move, Taggart's voice once more cut harshly through the silence.