“I’m going to investigate this,” said Dackley, “and if the story is true, the sooner you get out the better I’ll be pleased.”
Nick Jasniff had well understood that the truth would come out in the near future; and knowing how passionate James Dackley could become on occasion, he had lost no time in packing his few belongings and asking for his pay. This had been given to him, and he had thereupon set out on his journey toward the railroad station on foot—Dackley refusing to give him the loan of a horse.
Nick Jasniff had come to the conclusion that it would be best for him to quit the neighborhood. He had thirty dollars in his pocket, and this added to the forty-three taken from Dave’s pocketbook made quite a sum.
“There’s no use of my staying here in the West,” he reasoned. “There are far more chances in the East for a fellow like me. Maybe I’ll find some of the fellows I used to know out there, and we can pull off some stunts worth while.”
With several miles placed between him and the place where he had had the encounter with Dave, Nick Jasniff sat down to rest and at the same time look over the letters he had picked up. There was a cynical sneer on his face as he read the communication from Jessie to Dave.
“It’s enough to make a fellow sick to think such a rich girl as that should take to a fellow like Dave Porter,” he murmured to himself. “Wouldn’t I like to put a spoke in that fellow’s wheel! I wonder if I couldn’t do something to come between Porter and the Wadsworths? I owe old man Wadsworth something for sending me to prison.”
Then Nick Jasniff turned to the letter written by Dunston Porter. The beginning of this did not interest him greatly, but he read with interest what Dave’s uncle had written concerning the gypsies who had camped out on the outskirts of Crumville.
“Got into a row with a couple of gypsies, eh?” he mused. “I reckon that’s something worth remembering. Maybe those fellows wouldn’t mind joining me in some kind of a game against the Wadsworths. Maybe we could put one over and make a lot of money out of it. Anyway, it’s something worth thinking about;” and thereupon Nick Jasniff grew very thoughtful as he proceeded on his way to the railroad station.
CHAPTER IX
DAVE AT ORELLA
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when Dave rode into Orella. This was a typical mining town of Montana, containing but a single street with stores, the majority of which were but one story in height. Back of this street were probably half a hundred cabins standing at all sorts of angles toward the landscape; and beyond these were the mines.