CHAPTER XI.
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
Schemes looking toward the same object were at the same time busily advancing down at the camp.
Len had made his way back as rapidly as possible, and fortunately met Morris just as he was riding away into the mountains to be gone over night. He explained to him the whole situation, excepting that interview at the Professor’s, and at once enlisted his sympathy and interest. This was doubled when he heard that the real leader of the would-be jumpers was his antagonist in that El Dorado affair of which we have heard, whose overthrow would give him much satisfaction. He promised, therefore, that he would watch the three rascals sharply, and would certainly be on hand if they made any attempt to carry out their plans.
“More’n that,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if Buckeye Jim would be there too. That was all bosh, of course, that I told Bob about his being dead. I didn’t suppose the old fool’d swallow it as slick as he did. All the boys know he’s ’live and hearty, and he wrote me he was coming up here in a few days. If he’s on hand I ’low there’ll be some fun.”
“I hope there wont be any fighting,” said Len.
“Oh, of course, we all hope that; we’re all men of peace up here! All the same, if we should happen to want to shoot at a mark on t’other dump, or something of that kind, for a little amusement, after supper, you know, why it would do any fellow proud that happened to be over there, to kind o’ lay low, don’t you see, for fear of stray bullets, cause Jim and me shoots kind o’ free when once we turn loose.”
And having delivered himself of this long and oracular speech, Morris shook hands and turned his broncho’s head up hill.
Len might now have gone home, but he thought it worth while, as another mail would come in soon, to wait for possible letters, or what were even more desirable, the newspapers and magazines that his far-away people at home sent with pleasant frequency. He was rewarded by a bundle of these, and one letter, addressed to Max. It bore the card of the Denver assayer to whom specimens of the ore from the interior of the Last Chance had been sent for analysis. Perhaps it might dash their hopes, and his hand trembled a little as he put it away in his pocket. Then he tied the newspapers in his rubber coat, flung it over his shoulder, and had turned his face homeward, when a thought struck him.
Going back, he walked round the corner to the office of the Bull Pup mine, which had been bought, and was now operated, by a Mr. Anderson, the same eastern capitalist whose refusal to buy Old Bob’s prospect had been the beginning of Max’s adventures and our history, Len’s intention was to ask the agent whether Mr. Anderson was expected at the camp soon, and what was his present address.
In response to these questions he learned that Mr. Anderson would arrive ten days hence, and that meanwhile he could be communicated with at Denver.