"Something must be done," he said. "Yet her lungs can't stand the
exposure. She can't travel till the temperature rises. And I'm
not going to give her up."

Messner hemmed, cleared his throat, and hemmed again, semi-
apologetically, and said, "I need some money."

Contempt showed instantly in Womble's face. At last, beneath him
in vileness, had the other sunk himself.

"You've got a fat sack of dust," Messner went on. "I saw you
unload it from the sled."

"How much do you want?" Womble demanded, with a contempt in his
voice equal to that in his face.

"I made an estimate of the sack, and I - ah - should say it weighed
about twenty pounds. What do you say we call it four thousand?"

"But it's all I've got, man!" Womble cried out.

"You've got her," the other said soothingly. "She must be worth
it. Think what I'm giving up. Surely it is a reasonable price."

"All right." Womble rushed across the floor to the gold-sack.
"Can't put this deal through too quick for me, you - you little
worm!"

"Now, there you err," was the smiling rejoinder. "As a matter of
ethics isn't the man who gives a bribe as bad as the man who takes