Can you think of any one? Who are the survivors? Let's see; you, myself, possibly Grace!"
"It couldn't be that infernal Grace Conroy, really alive!" interrupted Dumphy, hastily.
"No," said Arthur, quietly; "you remember she was not present at the time."
"Gabriel?"
"I hardly think so. Besides, he is a friend of yours."
"It couldn't be—"
Dumphy stopped in his speech, with a certain savage alarm in his looks. Arthur noticed it, and quietly went on.
"Who 'couldn't it' be?"
"Nothing—nobody. I was only thinking if Gabriel or somebody could have told the story to some designing rascal."
"Hardly—in sufficient detail."
"Well," said Dumphy, with his coarse, bark-like laugh, "if I've got to pay to see Mrs. Dumphy decently buried, I suppose I can rely upon you to see that it's done without a chance of resurrection. Find out who Starbottle's friend is, and how much he or she expects. If I've got to pay for this thing, I'll do it now, and get the benefit of absolute silence. So I'll leave it in your hands;" and he again rose as if dismissing the subject and his visitor, after his habitual business manner.
"Dumphy," said Arthur, still keeping his own seat, and ignoring the significance of Dumphy's manner, "there are two professions that suffer from a want of frankness in the men who seek their services. Those professions are Medicine and the Law. I can understand why a man seeks to deceive his physician, because he is humbugging himself; but I can't see why he is not frank to his lawyer! You are no exception to the rule. You are now concealing from me, whose aid you have sought, some very important reason why you wish to have this whole affair hidden beneath the snow of Starvation Camp."
"Don't know what you're driving at," said Dumphy.
But he sat down again.
"Well, listen to me, and perhaps I can make my meaning clearer. My acquaintance with the late Dr. Devarges began some months before we saw you. During our intimacy he often spoke to me of his scientific discoveries, in which I took some interest, and I remember seeing among his papers frequent records and descriptions of localities in the foot-hills, which he thought bore the indications of great mineral wealth. At that time the Doctor's theories and speculations appeared to me to be visionary, and the records of no value. Nevertheless, when we were shut up in Starvation Camp, and it seemed doubtful if the Doctor would survive his discoveries, at his request I deposited his papers and specimens in a cairn, at Monument Point. After the catastrophe, on my return with the relief party to camp, we found that the cairn had been opened by some one, and the papers and specimens scattered on the snow. We supposed this to have been the work of Mrs. Brackett, who, in search of food, had broken the cairn, taken out the specimens, and died from the effects of the poison with which they had been preserved."
He paused and looked at Dumphy, who did not speak.
"Now," continued Arthur, "like all Californians, I have followed your various successes with interest and wonder. I have noticed, with the gratification that all your friends experience, the singular good fortune which has distinguished your mining enterprises, and the claims you have located. But I have been cognizant of a fact, unknown, I think, to any other of your friends, that nearly all of the localities of your successful claims, by a singular coincidence, agree with the memorandums of Dr. Devarges!"
Dumphy sprang to his feet with a savage, brutal laugh.
"So," he shouted, coarsely, "that's the game, is it! So it seems I'm mighty lucky in coming to you—no trouble in finding this woman now, hey? Well, go on, this is getting interesting; let's hear the rest! What are your propositions—what if I refuse, hey?"
"My first proposition," said Arthur, rising to his feet with a cold, wicked light in his gray eyes, "is, that you shall instantly take that speech back, and beg my pardon! If you refuse, by the living God, I'll throttle you where you stand!"
For one wild moment all the savage animal in Dumphy rose, and he instinctively made a step in the direction of Poinsett. Arthur did not move. Then Mr. Dumphy's practical caution asserted itself. A physical personal struggle with Arthur would bring in witnesses—witnesses, perhaps, of something more than that personal struggle. If he were victorious, Arthur, unless killed outright, would revenge himself by an exposure. He sank back in his chair again. Had Arthur known the low estimate placed upon
