“I wish I’d of shot him,” he wailed.  “I wish to God I’d of blowed his ugly head off.”

“It might have saved trouble,” admitted King coolly.  “Also, it might have been the job to hang you, Honeycutt.  Better leave well enough alone.  But listen to me:  Brodie told you, and he meant it, that it was going to be Brodie or King who got away with this deal.”

“He lied!  Like you lie!” Here was Honeycutt probed in his tenderest spot.  “It’ll be me!  Me, I tell you.  I’m the only man that knows, I’m the only man that’s got the right—­”

“Brodie spoke of right.  No one has a right more than any other man.  It’s treasure-trove, Honeycutt; it’s the man’s who can find it and bring it in.”

“That’ll be me.  You’ll see.  Think I’m old, do you?” He spoke jeeringly and clenched a pair of palsied fists.  “I’m feelin’ right peart this spring; by summer I’ll be strong as a young feller again.”

“By summer will be too late.  Don’t I tell you that already Brodie has gone as far as Lookout Ridge?  That means he’s getting hot on the trail of it, doesn’t it?  As hot as I am.”

“Then what are you comin’ pesterin’ me for?  If you know where it is?”

“I don’t know.”  Honeycutt cackled and rubbed his hands at the admission.  “But I’m going to find out.  So, probably, is Brodie.  Now, look here, Honeycutt; I haven’t come to browbeat you as Brodie did.  I am for making you a straight business proposition.  If you know anything, I stand ready to buy your knowledge.  In cold, hard cash.”

“No man ain’t got the money—­not enough—­not any Morgan or Rock’feller——­”

King began opening the parcel he had brought from the post-office.  As he cut the heavy cord with his pocket-knife Honeycutt looked on curiously.  King stepped to the table, standing so that out of the corners of his eyes he commanded both doors, and stripped off the wrapping-paper.

“Look sharp, Honeycutt,” he commanded.  “Here’s money enough to last you as long as you live.  All yours if you can tell me what I want to know.”

A golden twenty-dollar coin rolled free, shone with its virgin newness and lay on the table-top, gleaming its lure into the covetous old eyes.  Another followed it and another.  King regretted that there were not more, that the parcel contained banknotes for the most part.  He began counting it out.

“There’s one thousand dollars.  Right in that pile,” he said.  “One thousand dollars.”

“One thousand dollars.  An’ some of it gold.  New-lookin’, ain’t it, Mark?  Let me have the feel of one of them twenties.”

King tossed it; it fell upon the bedding, and Honeycutt’s fingers dived after it and held it tight.  He began rubbing it, caressing it.

King went on counting.

“One more thousand in this pile,” he said.  “That’s two thousand, Honeycutt!”

“Two thousand,” repeated Honeycutt, nodding.  He was sucking at his lips, his mouth puckered, his cheeks sunken in.  He got up and shambled on his cane close to the table, leaning against it, thrusting his peering eyes down.