“You are a human devil!” Donnegan said at last, and sank back upon his stool.  For a moment he was overcome, his head falling upon his breast, and even when he looked up his face was terribly pale, and his eyes dull.  His expression, however, cleared swiftly, and aside from the perspiration which shone on his forehead it would have been impossible ten seconds later to discover that the blow of the colonel had fallen upon him.

All of this the colonel had observed and noted with grim satisfaction.  Not once did he speak until he saw that all was well.

“I am sorry,” he said at length in a voice almost as delicate as the voice of Lou Macon.  “I am sorry, but you forced me to say more than I wished to say.”

Donnegan brushed the apology aside.

His voice became low and hurried.  “Let us get on in the matter.  I am eager to learn from you, colonel.”

“Very well.  Since it seems that there is a place for both our interests in this matter, I shall run on in my tale and make it, as I promised you before, absolutely frank and curt.  I shall not descend into small details.  I shall give you a main sketch of the high points; for all men of mind are apt to be confused by the face of a thing, whereas the heart of it is perfectly clear to them.”

He settled into his narrative.

“You have heard of The Corner?  No?  Well, that is not strange; but a few weeks ago gold was found in the sands where the valleys of Young Muddy and Christobel Rivers join.  The Corner is a long, wide triangle of sand, and the sand is filled with a gold deposit brought down from the headwaters of both rivers and precipitated here, where one current meets the other and reduces the resultant stream to sluggishness.  The sands are rich—­very rich!”

He had become a trifle flushed as he talked, and now, perhaps to cover his emotion, he carefully selected a cigarette from the humidor beside him and lighted it without haste before he spoke another word.

“Long ago I prospected over that valley; a few weeks ago it was brought to my attention again.  I determined to stake some claims and work them.  But I could not go myself.  I had to send a trustworthy man.  Whom should I select?  There was only one possible.  Jack Landis is my ward.  A dozen years ago his parents died and they sent him to my care, for my fortune was then comfortable.  I raised him with as much tenderness as I could have shown my own son; I lavished on him the affection and—­”

Here Donnegan coughed lightly; the fat man paused, and observing that this hypocrisy did not draw the veil over the bright eyes of his guest, he continued:  “In a word, I made him one of my family.  And when the need for a man came I turned to him.  He is young, strong, active, able to take care of himself.”

At this Donnegan pricked his ears.

“He went, accordingly, to The Corner and staked the claims and filed them as I directed.  I was right.  There was gold.  Much gold.  It panned out in nuggets.”