“Say on, then, for we are in a hurry to get our supper; you might almost call it breakfast, as it is past midnight, only we have not been to bed yet,” the doctor remarked, looking at his watch.
“We were hard up for provisions, and, for reasons of our own, we couldn’t get away from the neighbourhood on the cars, and we couldn’t tramp it over the mountains without food,” the prisoner said.
“I wonder you didn’t strike across the frontier,” remarked the doctor.
“We had made the States too hot to hold us,” explained the prisoner, who spoke like an educated man. “We thought of being able to rig ourselves out with necessary stores from here, and then tramp to some point on the railway, where we should not be recognized. But this shed was a hard nut to crack. Night after night we’ve been round here at the business, and have always failed, until we hit on the idea of borrowing Li Hang’s coffin, and getting in here that way. The plan answered all right, but the hitch came after, for that girl with the soft voice, who is telegraph operator here, must needs dump something on the lid that I couldn’t lift off. I suppose the poor little idiot was afraid the Chinkie’s ghost might wander round in an uncomfortable fashion after dark.” And the prisoner cackled feebly at his own poor wit.
“Your companions, where are they?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, clear away by this time; you won’t catch them, so you need not expect it.”
“Well, we’ve got you, and that is better than nothing,” the doctor remarked cheerfully. Then he went on, with a look at his companions, “Now I think we will go and get some supper, and leave this gentleman to meditation a little longer. It may lead him to reflect on how much easier it is to get into a coffin, than it is to get out again.”
The men all tramped out of the shed at this, the doctor locked the door, put the key carefully in his breast-pocket, then they all went off to Mrs. Trip’s bright, clean kitchen to get some food, and discuss what was best to be done.
“I know who that fellow is!” exclaimed the miner who had spoken of the prisoner’s voice as being familiar. “It is that Dick Brunsen, who swindled the syndicate with that faked copper-vein. I guess if some of the fellows he made dupes of got to understand about his being here, you would have hard work to protect him, doctor.”
“Then they must not know that he is here, for we don’t want any Judge Lynch on this side of the border; it is not the States, you know,” the doctor replied, with a trifle of sternness in his tone.