“Oh, yes,” said Merriwell. “Let me see, I forgot what it was?”
“This is the last day of your life, you know! When the sun rises to-morrow, Charles Conrad Merriwell will have ceased to exist. Aye! before the sun goes down in the west to-night—goes down where the Ragged Queen was and the Lost Man Mine now is—you will be gone from this world!”
“Yes, yes!” Merriwell assented, without a note of fear or regret in his voice. “That was what brought you here? I had forgotten, but that was it.”
“But before you go I want you to write a statement, which will show the world why you go and what is to become of some of your property—a great deal of your property.”
“Yes, yes!” Merriwell again assented.
Santenel produced a book of bank-checks which he had previously filled in. There were many of them, all for large amounts, and bearing various dates, some as much as six months before.
“You are not so wealthy as the world thinks you, when your debts are paid! My commissions for kiting the Blue Bird mining-stock for you were one hundred thousand dollars. It was no fault of mine that the Blue Bird was a worthless hole in the ground. You knew that, and I was only pushing your ventures. You lost, but you gave me two notes of fifty thousand each for my commission.”
He pushed out two notes, which Merriwell merely stared at.
“Then I took up and developed the Golden Nugget, at a cost to you of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, every cent of which I paid out of my own pocket, though for business reasons we permitted the world to think you advanced the money yourself. The Golden Nugget had no golden nuggets in it, and you lost; but, of course, I must have my money, and you gave me two more notes for that, each of seventy-five thousand dollars.”
He pushed them over, properly filled out, bearing interest, and a date of five months previous.