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Jim nodded in ready agreement. He had achieved his purpose. Len was down to hard facts.

“This is the thing I got planned,” Len went on, dipping his hands into the pile of gold and letting it sift back between his hard-worn fingers. “We’ve got to get a third feller into our game—on commission. We got to think wide and act wide. We got to play a red-hot game, an’ play it good. Ther’s got to be no weakening, an’ if any feller we work with plays the skunk he’s got to get his med’cine short. You get that?”

Jim made no reply, but the look in his eyes was sufficient.

“Well, here it is,” Len went on quickly. “If we dope this stuff out free we’ll break the market, and set every news-sheet shouting from one end of the world to the other. And the folks’ll jump in an’ shut us down. We’re sort of in the position of the feller who can transmute base metal. No. When we’ve a big enough bunch of stuff out I’m going to take a big trip down to Perth. I’m going to get a guy with a tramp ship, a Windjammer for preference. I’m going to fix up with him; he’ll get a handsome commission on our trade of gold, and I’m going to bring him along up and have him stand off down the coast a few miles, an’ then, with this old barge of ours, I’ll come along and pick up all we got, an’ haul it back aboard of his ship. Then you’re going right along with him and the stuff, and you’re going to travel from port to port and dispose of it for credit at such banks as will trade in smallish parcels. And meanwhile, I’ll stop right here on this coast an’ get stuff out ready for when you come back. Then I’ll take a trip, an’ you’ll stop around. An’ when we’ve sold all we need we’ll—quit. It’s the only way, Jim. We got to play the smugglin’ game, an’ play it good. We got to take chances. Mighty big chances! I got to trust you, an’ you got to trust me, an’ we got to trust that skipper by makin’ it worth his while an’ keeping a gun pushed ready. Ther’s got to be no weakening. It’s the only way I can see to put our play through. Otherwise, our gold ain’t worth hell room to us. Do you see it? Are you on? I want you to make that first trip because you got folks needing you worse than any one needs me. That’s one reason. The other is I want you to feel I’m putting right into your hands my share, and I’m not worrying a thing because that’s so. See? We know each other. We’re on the square. An’ the thing I want from you is to keep the commission guy on the same angle. Well?”