At that Reddy chuckled again.
“I call that a good guess, now,” he remarked, nodding to Frank, and winking his eye in the direction of the Kentucky lad.
Frank understood.
“Meaning that the third man beat you out of your shares; is that it, Reddy?” he asked, as he stepped closer to the other.
“That’s just what he did!” growled the man known as Blaisdell, and who appeared to be even more dissatisfied with the way matters had turned out than the leader himself.
“There were three sacks in the beginning?” Frank went on, holding up that number of fingers, as if to emphasize his point.
“Three—that’s right. Mr. Riley knows it’s so, don’t you Mr. Riley?” the man with the fiery hair admitted.
“Just one apiece, eh? And somehow in the shuffle this third fellow managed to hoodwink you two, so that he got away with the whole business. Clever work to pull the wool over the eyes of such a smart fellow as you’re said to be, Reddy Cramer!” Frank went on, thinking he would hear the particulars sooner if only he could excite the temper of the other.
“Aw! he just ketched us nappin’, that’s how it happened,” grumbled Blaisdell, who seemed to feel so keenly the utter collapse of their scheme that he was in a frame of mind to tell everything he knew.
And Reddy, seeing this evidence of turning state’s evidence on the part of his comrade, was himself willing to confess.