“Three men, and all wearing store shoes, with narrow soles, eh?” Bob continued.
Frank shot a look toward the experienced trailer. Then he held up two fingers of his right hand, with a question in his eyes. Sim nodded his head in the affirmative.
“There seems to be only two of them now,” remarked Frank.
“One missing, eh?” Bob kept on. “What d’ye suppose they could have done with him?”
“What do you think, Mr. Riley?” and Frank turned on the ex-superintendent.
“Well,” said he reflectively, “I’ve seen many of these fellows in my days, boys, and I reckon I know about how they pan out. There was just three in the bunch to start. That was evidently one too many. It made the shares of the swag too small. What happens? Oh! they just lost the third man, that’s all.”
“What! Do you mean to say they disposed of him when he wasn’t looking, and then ran away with the treasure?” demanded Bob.
“Oh! I don’t know,” resumed the ex-overseer. “Perhaps it wa’n’t so bad as that. They might have only tumbled him down into some hole, and left him there to climb out, or stay in. Then again, perhaps they just held him up, took his guns away, and then walked off with his sack.”
“That sounds as if it might be the way it happened,” remarked Bob, who could, in imagination, almost see the treachery of the two robbers being carried out; and, while he did not know why it should be so, somehow his sympathy seemed to go out to the third man who was being so badly treated by his mates.
“But you said the gold must have weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds, didn’t you, Mr. Riley?” asked Frank.