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Rh the chest and the sacks which they had brought from the yacht to convey thither the gold. In front they rolled boulders, and when their work was finished, under the gambler's direction, no trace of the iron was visible.

As the old man was patting the last creeper into place, like a "counterpane over the gold babies," he said, he suddenly stood mute and transfixed.

All eyes were bent on the leafy screen from which a little wriggling fork darted, behind, a flat spear-head and full three feet of muscle and gristle, coiled for the deadly spring.

Something whirred through the air—it was not the deadly forked thing, for this had the flash of steel. The knife pierced the adder's head just behind the poison wells in its throat, and pinioned the whole squirming length against the tree.

The gambler's nerveless hands were expert at many things besides stacking cards. Not for nothing had he swallowed swords and outlined the form of the painted lady with whirling knives, that year in the dime museum in Frisco.

Such hairtrigger accuracy was terrifying. Sally thought of that other knife she had seen, twenty-four hours before—the reddened one—and shuddered.

What was he saying?

"Old Timer, the good Book says 'thou shalt not covet,'" he quoted sardonically. "It grieves me to see how thou'st forgotten the Ten Commandments and all my holy teachings."

And the Pink Swede in turn jeered the maddened old man.