Bud had dropped down on a step of the stile that led from the road to the yard. His heavy lidded eyes were full of weariness and pain. His limp arm sagged but he said slowly:
"Thet's why I run away, Mr. Brent. I had to. Two of us couldn't cross thar without goin' slow—and I couldn't let them saddle-bags git lost."
"So ye couldn't be quite sure who you could trust," repeated Halloway. "I hopes ye knows now."
But Brent, watching the light in the great fellow's eyes did not miss their hungry gleam and in a low voice he said, "Jack, I'm not sure yet."
CHAPTER XIII
The conspiracy fathered by Lute Brown and Jase Mallows had its inception in a small coterie whose ambitions had been stirred to avarice by the bait of sharing among them a sum of over four thousand dollars. Ramifications of detail had necessitated the use of a larger force; a force so large, indeed, that anything like an equal distribution of booty would have intolerably eaten into the profits of the principals. Therefore the rank and file of employes were merely mercenaries, working for a flat wage.
But in such an enterprise the danger of mutiny always looms large and the bludgeon of blackmail lies ready to the hand of the mutineer. Therefore the actual handling of the money had been a matter of extreme care to Lute and those in his closest confidence. When the leader had taken most of his men out of the mine he had led away those of whom he had felt least sure—and had left the saddle-bags to the custody of the supposedly reliable minority. His estimate had been seventy-five per cent accurate. One only of the four was untrustworthy.
Lute himself had designated the custodian of the treasure and had fixed a rendezvous at a long abandoned and decaying cabin in a remote and thicketed locality. Shortly before dawn Lute arrived there, unaccompanied and expecting to find his man awaiting him. But complications had developed. When the quartette that left the mine last held a hurried conference outside, the squad leader explained that the very essence of precaution now lay in their separating and seeking individual cover.
Two of them concurred but the fellow who had attacked Alexander had become insurgent through drink, chagrin and cupidity.