"Open it," he said. "Rip it with this knife."
She ran the knife along the coarse weave of the cloth. Fifteen or twenty smaller sacks lay exposed. Sheba looked up at Macdonald, a startled question in her eyes.
He nodded. "You've guessed it. This is part of the gold for which Robert Milton was murdered."
He led her around the rock. Back of it lay something over which was spread a long bit of canvas. The heart of Sheba was beating wildly.
The Scotchman looked at her from a rock-bound face. "Underneath this canvas is the body of one of the men who murdered Milton. He died more miserably than the man he shot. Half the gold stolen from the bank is in that gunnysack you have just dug up. If you'll tell me who has the other half, I'll tell you who helped him rob the bank."
"This man--who is he?" asked Sheba, almost in a whisper. She was trembling with excitement and nervousness.
Macdonald drew back the cloth and showed the rough, hard face of a workingman.
"His name was Trelawney. I kicked him out of our camps because he was a trouble-maker."
"He was one of the men that robbed you later!" she exclaimed.
"Yes. And now he has tried to rob me again and has paid for it with his life."
Her mind flashed back over the past. "Then his partner in this last crime must have been the same man--what's his name?--that was with him last time."
"Northrup." He nodded slowly. "I hate to believe it, but it is probably true. And he, too, is lying somewhere in this park covered with snow--if our guess is right."
Again he nodded, sulkily. "No. He didn't do it."
Joy lilted in her voice. "So you've brought me here to tell me. Oh, I am glad, my friend, that you were so good. And it is like you to do it. You have always been the good friend to me."
The Scotchman smiled, a little wistfully. "You take a mean advantage of a man. You nurse him when he is ill--and are kind to him when he is well--and try to love him, though he is twice your age and more. Then, when his enemy is in his power, he finds he can't strike him down without striking you too. Take your young man, Sheba O'Neill, and marry him, and for God's sake, get him out of Alaska before I come to grips with him again. I'm not a patient man, and he's tried me sair. They say I'm a good hater, and I always thought it true. But what's the use of hating a man when your soft arms are round him for an armor?"