"We'll explain everything in a few minutes, Mr. Blower. These fellows are swindlers! They robbed me of my suit-case and then got ahead of me, and that fellow impersonated me," and Roger pointed to Merwell. "We hired Mr. Dillon to bring us to you—or at least he offered to come. He knows that I am the real Roger Morr, and Maurice Harrison was my mother's brother."
"Well, I never! But wot did they think to gain——"
"They wanted to locate the lost mine before I got here, that was their game. What they intended to do later I don't know, but probably Job Haskers was going to cook up some deal whereby our family could be kept out of the property. He is a rascal——"
"See here, Morr, I won't—er—have you—ahem!—talk about me in this——" commenced the former teacher.
"But I will talk about you!" interrupted Roger. "You are a rascal, almost as bad as Merwell here, and you know it."
"Yes, and we know it, don't we, Phil?" cried another voice, and Dave and Phil stepped into view.
"Porter—and Lawrence!" faltered the former teacher of Oak Hall, and he looked almost ready to drop. "I—I——" He did not know how to finish.
"Say, I want to git the straight o' this!" burst out Abe Blower.
"This young man is givin' it to you straight, Abe," replied Tom Dillon, pointing to Roger. "And these are his friends—all true blue to the core. These other fellers are first-class swindlers. They took you in good an' proper."
"If they did, they shall suffer fer it!" roared the other miner. "Do you know, I kinder suspected somethin' was wrong. They didn't act as open as honest folks should. An' they was in an all-fired hurry to git away from Butte and from Black Cat Camp."