showed in beads on Lefty's forehead. The will to arrest the ancient miner's retreating soul shone from their six eyes.
At last the tired lids fluttered, the shrunken throat seemed trying to swallow. Healy reached out trembling, eager fingers and touched Lyman's throat. Lyman's eyes opened, the mist slowly clearing. Lefty shot out the question that dominated all of them.
"Where?"
Light gathered in the gray orbs of the old prospector as his will flogged his brain and rallied his senses.
"I nigh slipped," he whispered. "But I ain't gone yet. More whisky." After taking it he rested, but his eyes stayed open and his chest began to labour.
"I'll tell you," he gasped after a little. "The three of ye, after you swear on the Book thar to seek out my Madge. My wife is dead. I've just seen her." The three looked at each other. There was a quality of certainty in the simple statement that forced conviction. The old man's spirit, dragged back from the brink of eternity, had seen something.
"Swear to do your best to find the stuff, then to split half with her. Thar's millions in that mother-lode. Swear it with your right hands on the Book."
Their three hands covered the yellow middle pages. Healy's lips held an impatient sneer. Lefty's pug face was a blank. To them the thing was a farce, a formula to be gone through swiftly. Stone was not bound by the creed the volume represented but his will supplemented his act and made a vow of it.
