Merry whistled over this, showing no small amount of surprise.
"Ees de writin' what you expec'?" asked Pablo anxiously.
"It's somewhat more than I expected," said Frank. "By Jove! there will be doings here to-night."
He quickly decided on the course he would pursue. Carefully drying the flap of the envelope, he placed some fresh mucilage on it, thrust the message into it, and resealed it carefully.
"See here, Pablo," he said quickly, "if you can do it, I want you to take this and drop it just where you found it, so that Tracy will be pretty sure to recover it. I do not wish him to know that it has been picked up. Do your best. If you can't do it, come and tell me."
"I do eet," assured Pablo, as he took the envelope, concealed it beneath his jacket, and slipped from the cabin.
Frank had been given something to think about.
"So Tracy has turned traitor," he meditated. "He has decided to betray the mine into the hands of Cimarron Bill's gang. It was his writing on the notice pinned on the door, not Bill's. That notice was a fake, and it made him angry because it didn't work out as he planned. Bill got at him through Hop Anson, who must have been in Bill's employ all along. Well, to-night is the time I give those ruffians their final setback. Another repulse will discourage them. They would have descended on the place while I was in their power if they had fancied there was any chance that I might escape with my life."
Pretty soon he walked out, with his hands in his[Pg 157] pockets, and joined his friends, laughing heartily over Gallup's trials, and seeming undisturbed by any worry.