"I know most of it from Robin and Santiago."
"You don't know all," replied Frisco quietly "I've been with Carr these twenty years and more. He was a devil and treated me like a dog. I helped him to get that treasure and he cheated me of my share of it."
"I shouldn't think you were the man to be cheated."
"Not in an ordinary way, you bet. But the Colonel had the bulge on me I guess. He could have handed me over to the authorities in San Francisco for a murder. Oh! don't look scared Herrick. I'm not going to own up to all my crimes. I have committed heaps though."
"Oh, damn your beastly talk," said Herrick angrily, for the shamelessness of the man made him sick, "just tell me about that night."
"All in good time sonny," said the unmoved Frisco, "I stayed with the Colonel and let him keep my money because I did not want my wife to know I was alive. She was a good woman and I treated her like a brute. That was one reason. The second was because of my own skin. I did not want to be hanged, and Carr could have hanged me any day. The third reason," and here Frisco looked curiously at Herrick, "you'll hardly believe the third reason. But it was a kind of tenderness for Carr. Somehow, devil as he was, I liked him. Never met a man I cottoned to more. He saved my life, I saved his, we fought with knives and with fists, and played the devil with one another all round. Yet somehow we stuck together, and never went back on one another. Rum thing wasn't it Herrick."
"Honour amongst thieves," said Dr. Jim with a shrug. "You bet that's it," retorted Frisco. "So you can see Herrick that I was not the sort of man to put Carr out of the way. I got drunk, so did he but we held together in that blamed house always waiting for death."
"Ah! The Indians, I suppose."
"Santiago told you that I guess," said the man. "Yes, there was some half Spanish half Indian greasers in Lima that would have followed us to the end of the world had they spotted our whereabouts. Santiago was one, but he wished for the money on his own hook and didn't split. Well Carr is dead so he is safe enough, but if I'm not hanged I guess Santiago will let out on me. Then I'll have a time getting away."
"Was it on account of this fear that Carr built the tower."