Day by day, through dragging hours, he suffered from the agonizing monotony of the camp. But the future offered only a somber prospect. After this respite in the insistence of the treasure seekers, he could expect only ugly determination when they dared to make a move in the matter. They had plenty of leisure for talk. They were already spending that money! Wagg was even more impatient than the others. Though Vaniman had been cruelly tortured by thoughts of the injustice that had been visited on him, by his reflections that the Egyptians had shown him no consideration, he had nursed the hope that he might contrive to give them back their money after he had dragged from Britt the truth. But at last, in his new spirit of loneliness, in the consciousness that no man's hand was offered to him in the way of help, he entered upon a new phase of resolution. He had gone into prison with youth's ingenuous belief that the truth would prevail. He had permitted a lie to aid in prying his way out, and now he was paltering with evasions and making no progress except toward more dangerous involvement. One afternoon sudden fury swept the props out from under caution. He leaped up from the rock on which he had been sitting, pondering, the rumble of the conspirators' conversation serving as obbligato for the cry his soul was uttering. He was between them and the sunset sky. “The truth!” he shouted. The three men peered at him, shading their eyes. He seemed to tower with heroic stature. He came at them, shaking his fists over his head. “You are thieves and renegades. I don't believe you know the truth when you hear it. But you're going to hear it.” He tackled Wagg first. He set the grip of both of his hands into the slack of the shoulders of the amazed guard's coat and yanked Wagg to his feet and shouted, with his nose barely an inch from Wagg's face, “I told you the truth at first. I said I didn't know where the money was. You gave me a chance to get out by a lie. I'm human. I took the chance.” He threw Wagg from him with a force that sent the man staggering; the guard stumbled over a rock and fell on his back. He turned on the convicts. By his set-to with Wagg he had gained their full attention. “You low-lived scoundrels, do you know an honest man when you lay eyes on him? I declare that I am one. Dispute me, and I'll knock your teeth down your throats--guns or no guns. I don't know where the money is. I never touched that money. I didn't know what was in those sacks. If you were decent men, with any conception of an oath before God, I'd swear to the truth of what I say. I won't lower myself to make oath! I make the statement. And now let some of you--or all three of you--stand up in front of me and tell me that I'm lying. Come on! It's an open field!” They did not stand up. Wagg merely sat up. “Say something! Some one of you! Say something!” pleaded Vaniman through his set teeth.