“You amaze me,” Rann was saying.  “You amaze me utterly.  You’ve gone mad—­mad as a rock-rabbit, Quade!  Do you mean to tell me you’re on the square when you offer to turn over a half of your share in the gold if I help you to get this woman?”

“I do,” replied Quade thickly.  “I mean just that!  And we’ll put it down in black an’ white—­here, now.  You fix the papers, same as any other deal, and I’ll sign!”

For a moment Culver Rann did not reply.  He leaned back in his chair, thrust the thumbs of his white hands in his vest, and sent a cloud of smoke above his head.  Then he looked at Quade, a gleam of humour in his eyes.

“Nothing like a woman for turning a man’s head soft,” he chuckled.  “Nothing in the world like it, ’pon my word, Quade.  First it was DeBar.  I don’t believe we’d got him if he hadn’t seen Marie riding her bear.  Marie and her curls and her silk tights, Quade—­s’elp me, it wouldn’t have surprised me so much if you’d fallen in love with her! And over this other woman you’re as mad as Joe is over Marie.  At first sight he was ready to sell his soul for her.  So—­I gave Marie to him.  And now, for some other woman, you’re just as anxious to surrender a half of your share of what we’ve bought through Marie.  Good heaven, man, if you were in love with Marie——­”

“Damn Marie!” growled Quade.  “I know the time when you were bugs over her yourself, Rann.  It wasn’t so long ago.  If I’d looked at her then——­”

“Of course, not then,” interrupted Rann smilingly.  “That would have been impolite, Quade, and not at all in agreement with the spirit of our brotherly partnership.  And, you must admit, Marie is a devilish good-looking girl.  I’ve surrendered her only for a brief spell to DeBar.  After he has taken us to the gold—­why, the poor idiot will probably have been sufficiently happy to——­”

He paused, with a suggestive shrug of his shoulders.

“—­go into cold storage,” finished Quade.

“Exactly.”

Again Quade leaned over the table, and for a moment there was silence, a silence in which Aldous thought the pounding of his heart must betray him.  He lay motionless on the floor.  The nails of his fingers dug into the bare wood.  Under the palm of his right hand lay his automatic.

Then Quade spoke.  There must have been more in his face than was spoken in his words, for Culver Rann took the cigar from between his lips, and a light that was deadly serious slowly filled his eyes.

“Rann, we’ll talk business!” Quade’s voice was harsh, deep, and quivering.  “I want this woman.  I may be a fool, but I’m going to have her.  I might get her alone, but we’ve always done things together—­an’ so I made you that proposition.  It ain’t a hard job.  It’s one of the easiest jobs we ever had.  Only that fool of a writer is in the way—­an’ he’s got to go anyway.  We’ve got to get rid of him on account of the gold, him an’ MacDonald.  We’ve got that planned.  An’ I’ve showed you how we can get the woman, an’ no one ever know.  Are you in on this with me?”