He flinched from it in spite of himself, but the next moment he was his own master again, erect and stern, contemptuously unafraid.
"Don't shoot!" said Bill Warden, with a gleam of his teeth, "or maybe you'll shoot a friend!" He was standing empty-handed save for the torch he carried, his great figure upright against the wall, facing Hill with speculation in his eyes.
Hill lowered his revolver.

"I doubt it," he said, grimly.
"Ah! You don't know me yet, do you ?" said Warden, a faintly jeering note in his voice.
"Yes," said Hill, deliberately.

"I think I know you--pretty well--now." "I wonder," said Warden.
He moved slowly forward, throwing the light before him as he did so.

The place had been blasted out of the rock, and here and there the stone shone smooth as marble where the charge had gone.

Rough shelves had been hewn in the walls, leaving divisions between, and on some of these were stored bags of the precious metal that had been ground out of the ore.
There was no sign anywhere of any entrance save the iron-bound door behind Hill.
Straight in front of him Warden stopped.