“Well,” said Deringham, “I must endeavour if possible to return to England with you.  When you spoke of being away a month you seemed to contemplate a possibility of being absent longer.”

Alton nodded.  “I did,” he said.  “The man who found the silver is lying up there still, but I’ve provided for anything of that kind happening to me, as you will see in a day or two.  Now I don’t think we need worry any more until we get to Carnaby.”

Deringham made a gesture of concurrence, but the grim irony of Alton’s speech occurred to him as he went out to grapple with his torturing anxiety.  At first he could scarcely think of anything consecutively, and once more the picture of a man hanging by a juniper-bush with a river frothing down the gorge below rose up persistently before his memory.  It was replaced by another of a grim silent figure keeping watch with eyes that never ceased their fixed stare beside a frozen trail.

On the second day afterwards he sauntered into Horton’s store and found Hallam there.  The mining speculator appeared ironically amused, the storekeeper flushed and savage, but when Hallam turned to Deringham there was something in his manner that suggested they had not met by accident.

“I’ve been telling the storekeeper not to lay in too many Somascos just yet, and have got to put in the time here for an hour or two,” he said.  “Know any reason why you shouldn’t have a drink with me?”

They strolled into an adjoining room, and Horton, who supplied them with a bottle and glasses, came back smiling sardonically.  “Now if Hallam hadn’t put it that way I mightn’t have thought anything,” said he.  “Still, when a man of his kind takes the trouble to tell one anything it’s a blame good reason for not believing him.”

In the meanwhile Hallam, who filled the glasses, glanced at Deringham.  “You think I can be of some use to you?” he said.

“Yes,” said Deringham.  “I presume you know Alton is going up to find the silver he needs to help him traverse your schemes?”

“Oh, yes,” said Hallam.  “Still I should have figured he could have got it out of Carnaby.”

“I believe he intends to.”

Hallam smiled unpleasantly.  “Now I begin to understand you,” he said.  “You lost a good many dollars over the Peveril.”

“I think that is beside the question,” said Deringham.

Hallam regarded his companion steadily.  “Well, I don’t know, but we needn’t argue.  You don’t want him to get those dollars out of Carnaby?”

“And you don’t want him to find the silver.”

Hallam laughed.  “That’s quite right,” said he.  “The same thing would suit both of us.”

“I scarcely think so,” said Deringham.  “In my case, I really do not mind whether he gets the dollars from Carnaby or not.”

“No?” said Hallam.  “Then you’ll have to tell me what you want.”

“I don’t want him to come over to England too soon.  If anything kept him up there among the mountains a month or so longer than he expected, so that I should have time to straighten up things a little, I would not complain.”