“Agreed,” said Lyle merrily, and the two began to descend the mountain.
CHAPTER VII.
Houston and Rutherford were promptly at the depot, as agreed, to take the early morning train to the mines.
Mr. Blaisdell met them with a great show of cordiality, his thin lips contracted into a smile which was doubtless intended to be very agreeable, but which produced a sensation exactly the reverse.
“Well,” Rutherford began, with his peculiar drawl, when he and Houston were seated together in the car, with Mr. Blaisdell safely engaged in conversation at a little distance, “I can’t say that I’m any more favorably impressed with Mr. Buncombe, or whatever his name is, than I was with old Boomerang yesterday. That fellow looked like a silly, pompous, old fool, and this one like a sly, old villain. I wish he’d stop that confounded, wolfish grin of his, it makes me feel uncomfortable, he looks as if he knew he had his prey just dead easy, and his chops were watering in anticipation. I say, old fellow, I don’t think much of this Buncombe-Boomerang combination of yours, and I guess it’s a good thing I’m along with you till we find out what sort of a trap we’re getting into.”
Houston smiled; Rutherford had expressed his own opinion a great deal nearer than he cared to admit. He had seen enough of the men with whom he was to be associated to convince him that they were villains, cowardly villains too, the very sort of men that would be most desperate and dangerous when cornered; but he was fast laying his plans, and now the only drawback seemed that he would have no assistant, and he felt the time would come when he would need one, and some one familiar with mining. An expert from the east would not do, he would be suspected; and a detective would not possess the necessary information regarding mining in general, and these mines in particular. At times, a vague idea of taking Rutherford into his confidence came into his mind, but he was not ready to do this yet, if at all.
All this flashed through Houston’s mind as Rutherford made the above remark, and he answered:
“I don’t apprehend any particular danger at present, but I am glad you are with me.”