With trembling hands he unfolded the sheets and scanned them over. He had hardly read a dozen lines before he gave a loud cry.
“Oh, what shame, what baseness!” he cried. “This is the dying statement of James Barr, in which he says that Colonel Mendix has enticed him hither and made him a prisoner; that he is dying with a fever, caught some time before, and that the colonel wished to get him out of the way for fear he may expose the fact that the Cortez mine lies wholly within the Aurora mine limits; and that Colonel Mendix, alias Guerotaz, is in reality a Spanish counterfeiter named Guito!”
Oliver was both pained and delighted over the discovery he had made,—pained that James Barr had come to so heartless a death, and delighted to know that he now had the means within his power to cause Colonel Mendix’s immediate arrest, providing, of course, he could gain his own liberty.
“What a rascal that Spaniard is!” he exclaimed. “Just think of his luring poor Barr to his death while the man was sick with the fever! I would like nothing better than to give the brute a sound thrashing, and he deserves a thousand!”
“Never fear but what the law will take care of him,” replied Gus. “They are not letting counterfeiters off so easily, to say nothing of Barr’s death, and this mine swindle.”
“If we were only out of this hole!”
“That’s just it. But gracious, I don’t know how to turn!”
“Let us go back to that watercourse,” suggested Oliver after a moment’s thought. “That must lead somewhere.”
“You are right. I never thought of that; but if there is escape that way, I wonder why Barr didn’t—”