But at last, in his new spirit of loneliness, in the consciousness that no man’s hand was offered to him in the way of help, he entered upon a new phase of resolution.  He had gone into prison with youth’s ingenuous belief that the truth would prevail.  He had permitted a lie to aid in prying his way out, and now he was paltering with evasions and making no progress except toward more dangerous involvement.  One afternoon sudden fury swept the props out from under caution.

He leaped up from the rock on which he had been sitting, pondering, the rumble of the conspirators’ conversation serving as obbligato for the cry his soul was uttering.  He was between them and the sunset sky.

“The truth!” he shouted.

The three men peered at him, shading their eyes.  He seemed to tower with heroic stature.  He came at them, shaking his fists over his head.

“You are thieves and renegades.  I don’t believe you know the truth when you hear it.  But you’re going to hear it.”

He tackled Wagg first.  He set the grip of both of his hands into the slack of the shoulders of the amazed guard’s coat and yanked Wagg to his feet and shouted, with his nose barely an inch from Wagg’s face, “I told you the truth at first.  I said I didn’t know where the money was.  You gave me a chance to get out by a lie.  I’m human.  I took the chance.”

He threw Wagg from him with a force that sent the man staggering; the guard stumbled over a rock and fell on his back.

He turned on the convicts.  By his set-to with Wagg he had gained their full attention.  “You low-lived scoundrels, do you know an honest man when you lay eyes on him?  I declare that I am one.  Dispute me, and I’ll knock your teeth down your throats—­guns or no guns.  I don’t know where the money is.  I never touched that money.  I didn’t know what was in those sacks.  If you were decent men, with any conception of an oath before God, I’d swear to the truth of what I say.  I won’t lower myself to make oath!  I make the statement.  And now let some of you—­or all three of you—­stand up in front of me and tell me that I’m lying.  Come on!  It’s an open field!”

They did not stand up.  Wagg merely sat up.

“Say something!  Some one of you!  Say something!” pleaded Vaniman through his set teeth.

The convicts kept their sitting.  Vaniman went on adjuring them to stand up and say something.  They showed no resentment when he called them names, and they indicated no relish for battle.

“Hold on a minute!” pleaded the short man.  “You seem to have your mind well made up as to what we’d better not say.  I may have to eat state-prison grub again, and I’ll need my teeth.  Won’t you kindly drop a hint as to what would suit you in the line of talk?”

“You can tell me whether you think I’m handing you the truth or not.”

“I think you are,” agreed Bill, readily.

“So do I,” asserted Tom.