"In a minute. In a minute." He was chewing on an unlit cigar, watching as attentively as a lecher watching a nun disrobe. The muleskinner had unhitched the wheel team and half a dozen of the guards were shoving on the wagon tongue to push it back against the loading platform, where more men began to unload the boxes of gold onto a cart.

    It looked like the kind of wheeled dumpcart they used in mineshafts-a hand-push cart mounted on railroad wheels. From this angle Vangie couldn't see any rails, but she assumed they must be there, leading back into the building.

    "Come on," she whispered insistently and dragged him quickly to the front door, through which the tourists were disappearing. She glanced over her shoulder and saw both gate guards scowling in their direction. She hurried Gabe inside.

    "Now the annual production of the mines here in California," the guide was intoning, "is in the vicinity of twenny million dollars. Now folks, that's just a whole lot of dollars. Why if you took twenny million dollars in one-dollar green-jackets, it would stretch from here to… well I don't rightly recollect exactly where, maybe Chicago, but it'd reach pret' near two thousand miles. And that's a long way to walk laying greenjacket bills end to end just to prove a stupid point, haw haw. Now the way the United States Mint operates here, we get shipments of clean-smelted gold ingots in from the mines just about every day, but what we do, we wait till we've got anywheres from one to two million dollars worth of gold to strike before we start up the presses, which I'm just about to show you on over here. So anyhow, three-four times a year we run off a stamping, and every year or two we got to change the mold-plates. Course we could keep the presses running all the time, stamp out coins every day from every little shipment, but that'd be a lot more costly and your Government is lookin' out for your interests by operating in the most economical way. I guess all us citizens apprayshate that, haw haw."

    Vangie looked with approval on the great number of armed guards they passed in the hallways. Everywhere you turned, there was a man in uniform with a gun and a grim expression.

    Each time she spotted another guard, she plucked at Gabe's sleeve to make sure he noticed. He kept nodding impatiently and shaking her off.

    The guide took them into the pressroom and spent the longest eight minutes she'd ever experienced describing, in more detail than anybody wanted to hear, the process of melting ingots, pouring them into the molds, transferring the blank new discs onto the presses, and stamping the sides. Gabe kept shifting restively from foot to foot and sweeping the ceiling with his glance.

    It wasn't really a huge building but the number of turnings and corridors made it seem endless. The bored, rote intonations of the guide's voice kept ringing in stone-bounced echoes and Vangie became eager to get out of this place. It had all the homey comfortable warmth of a Mexican vampire cave, one of which she had once seen. One was too many.

    They turned yet another corner. "And this here," the guide announced, "is where the gold comes in from the mines. Now you folks are most fortunate this mornin' because we actually have a shipment coming in right now as you can see. Now mind you don't get run over, haw-that little cart's pretty durned heavy, you better believe me, haw haw."

    The handcart was coming along the rails, carrying the boxed gold down a wide corridor. At the far end was the loading platform they'd seen from outside. The rails crossed in front of them and went into another room.

    Two guys were pushing the handcart and half a dozen guards walked along beside it. As they passed the tourist group they began to turn, so that finally most of them were walking backwards. One of them backed right into the doorjamb and some of the tourists snickered. The guard got very red in the face and ducked out of sight through the doorway, but it quickly became clear that wouldn't save him because the guide was leading the party right in through the same door, following him.

    "Now this here's the anteroom to our storage vault," the guide told them. "Can everybody see back there?"

    The people in back murmured that they could see. Not that it mattered to Vangie, since she and Gabe were no longer among the people at the back. From hanging around at the very rear of the group all through the first part of the tour, Gabe had now insisted on shoving his way up to the very front. And Vangie knew why; that damned vault was calling to him with its siren song, all about gold.

    The anteroom was just an empty square space surrounded by walls without windows. The tracks went on through and out another doorway on the opposite side; the gold shipment with all its guards was just leaving the anteroom as the tour group filed in.

    The guide waited till everybody was in before going on with his spiel. "Now," he said, "we ain't allowed past this point, so I'll just let each of you come over here close to the door and peek past my shoulder if you'd like to see the vault. It's right through here, this doorway. Now mind you, not too close-these here boys get right nervous if they see anybody leanin' too passionately toward that gold inside, haw haw."

    Gabe was the first to step forward and finally Vangie had to drag him aside to let the other people have a look. She herself got only a glimpse into the vault.

    It didn't look extraordinary. Just a ten-by-ten room with a big steel door at the far end of it, into which ran the handcart rails. The guards were unloading the boxes and stacking them on shelves inside the vault at the far side of the room. The big steel door was open. A guard now came across from the steel door and slammed shut an open-grille door of steel bars, like a jail cell door, of which Vangie had seen one or two in her time. It didn't block anyone's view, but the steel bars looked about three inches thick. It was obvious nobody was going to open that door without a key and a lot of friends.

    She began to feel a little better about things. Gabe's idea was clearly impossible after all.

    "Now this here barred door is closed and locked virtually at all times, folks, except when there's a cart going through, as you just seen. And of course at these times we keep a minimum force of twenny armed guards in these two rooms, not to mention all the guards you saw around the rest of the Mint. So you can rest assured your money's safe, haw haw. Nobody's ever tried to rob the United States Mint, of course-nobody's ever been stupid enough to try. I reckon someday somebody will, but you probably won't even read about it in the papers, because whatever they do they ain't gonna get anywheres near your Government's gold."

    Vangie was absolutely positive the guide had said that strictly for Gabe's benefit. But Gabe was smiling faintly as if his head were filled with pleasant faraway visions. He didn't seem to be listening to the guide any more. He was looking up at the corners of the anteroom, just under the ceiling. Vangie looked up that way, but she couldn't see anything but walls and ceiling.

    The guide reached over to touch the heavy steel panel beside the barred door. "And this here solid steel door-this is armor plate, by the way-this is kept closed and locked at all times except visiting hours."

    Gabe obviously wasn't listening at all any more. His glance swiveled back from the vault room, and Vangie, following the direction of his gaze, didn't see anything that looked important. He was just looking out the corridor toward the loading platform at the far end.

    It was all one long straight line, she noticed. From the loading platform the rails came straight through the building, through the anteroom, and right into the vault.