Stiff and saddle-sore as he was, Eckstein leaped out of his chair with an oath.

“Merriam?  What the devil is he back here for?  It’s a put-up job!”

It was the chief of the MacMorroghs who flung in the calming word.

“’Tis only a happen-so, Misther Eckstein.  Merriam owns a mine or two in the Copah, and ye know the fever:  a man can’t keep away from thim.”

“That may be; but it’s a cursed unlucky combination, just the same.  I tell you, Brian, he knows too much—­this fellow Merriam.  He knew what was up when he was steering Frisbie.  You told him too much.  And afterward, when we gave him the Oregon job, he knew why he was being bribed to go away.  You let us in for this:  you’ve got to muzzle him, some way.”

The MacMorrogh looked at his remaining brother meaningly. “’Tis up to you, this time, Mickey, b’y.  Find your way over to the minin’ camp this night, and make a clane job av it.’”

Penfield was moving uneasily in his chair.  The plotting waters were deepening swiftly, much too swiftly for him.  Loyalty to his superior officer, the unquestioning loyalty that disregards motives entirely and does not look too closely at methods, was his fetish.  But these men were not merely loyal to Mr. North.  They were criminals—­he stuck at the word, but there was no other—­fighting for their own hand.

“I guess—­I guess I’d better go back to the Nadia,” he stammered, trying to keep his voice steady.  “Mr. Colbrith may need me.”

Eckstein turned on him like a snarling animal.

“No you don’t, Arthur, my boy.  I know you like a book.  You stay here till you’re in as deep as the rest of us.  Like Merriam, you know too damned much.”

Penfield sat still, with the cold chills running up and down his spine, while Eckstein went on talking to the two MacMorroghs.

“This Merriam business complicates things like hell”—­he was growing coarsely profane in the grinding mill of events.  “But it shows us where we stand.  This thing has got to go through, and if it doesn’t work out the way we’ve planned it, it’s for us to find another way.”

“There’s always the wan other way,” said the elder MacMorrogh slowly.  “‘Tis but a drunken fight in wan o’ the camps, and Ford tryin’ to stop it, as he always does:  a bit of a shindy among the b’ys, and this—­” crooking his forefinger suggestively.

“Bah!” said Eckstein.  “You fellows ought to have lived in the stone age, when a man pulled his enemy to pieces with his bare hands.  If it comes to that, there are easier ways—­and safer.  A premature blast in a rock cut; a weak coupling-pin when he happens to be standing in the way of a pulling engine:  they tell me he is always indifferent to his personal safety.  But never mind the fashion of it; the point I’m making is that if everything else fails, Ford mustn’t live to be the head-foreman of the outfit.”

Penfield’s face was ashen, and he was cravenly thankful that the lamplight was dim, and that his chair was in the shadow.  This was more than he had bargained for; more by the price of a man’s life.