FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
The outlaw looked utterly bewildered.
"Ain't them diamonds?" he exclaimed.
"Fool's diamonds," Horace replied. "Maybe you can get five dollars for the lot. If they were real diamonds, you might be a millionaire now."
Mitchell was evidently convinced, for he swore bitterly.
"I'm curious to know," Horace said, "how you came to hear that you might expect to find diamonds hereabouts?"
"One of these breeds," said Mitchell sullenly, "got it from a brother of his down by Hickson that a prospector had died here with a pocketful of shiny stones that he'd picked up. I've prospected some myself. I thought what these stones likely was, and I got together this crowd, and—"
"We know the rest," said Peter. "You came on the same false scent that we did." Then he turned to Horace, and whispered, "What in the world are we going to do with these fellows?"
Horace wrinkled his brows in perplexity, and shook his head. "I don't know," he said.