"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.
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?"
Culver Rann's reply was as quick and sharp as a pistol shot.
For another moment there was silence. Then Quade asked:
"No. There can't be a written agreement in this deal because--it's dangerous. There won't be much said about old MacDonald. But questions, a good many of them, will be asked about this man Aldous. As for the woman----" Rann shrugged his shoulders with a sinister smile. "She will disappear like the others," he finished. "No one will ever get on to that. If she doesn't make a pal like Marie--after a time, why----"
Again Aldous saw that peculiar shrug of his shoulders.