“I can’t stay here, Brad. I feel certain Frank needs me. His enemies are very powerful and desperate. What would I think of myself if anything serious happened to my brother? I should hate myself forever afterward.”
“I allow that’s dead right, partner,” he agreed. “I am feeling some that way myself. I certain smell smoke in the air, and I have an itching to be in the midst of the fray. But whatever are you going to do with Felicia?”
“Why, I did think of leaving her here with you. I thought of leaving you in charge of her.”
“What, me?” squealed the Texan. “Leave me behind when there’s a ruction brewing? Do you mean, pard, that you propose to cut me out of this yere scrimmage? Oh, say, Dick, you’d never treat me that low down! I came West to stick by you a heap close, and I am going to do it. Why don’t you leave your cousin in the care of Cap’n Wiley?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” answered Dick. “Wiley is square enough; but he is careless. Besides that, how can I find my way to the Enchanted Valley unless guided by Wiley himself?”
“That’s so. I never thought of that. You’ve got to take Wiley along—unless you can get hold of that man Colvin, who brought the message to Merry.”
Dick frowned a little, seeming deep in serious thought.
“Then there’s the hunchback boy,” he finally muttered. “Possibly he might know the trail, but I doubt it.”
“You can’t depend on him none whatever,” put in Buckhart. “He looks like a good wind would blow him away.”