“So you see,” he went on, “that we had to make Morrison talk. We offered him a third share to go back and guide us. I don’t think anything could have been squarer. Well—you know about all the rest. When he had his stroke, or whatever it was, we tried every way to bring him to. At last we pinned all our hopes to the great Chicago specialist, Doctor Robert Long, and got him aboard!”
“Long couldn’t have done a bit more than I did,” said Lang abstractedly, thinking hard. “But now Floyd and Morrison are both gone—the only men who knew anything of the place. There’s no chance of finding it. The game is up, it seems to me.”
“Ah, that’s the very point!” cried Carroll. “I knew, as soon as I set eyes on them, what those photos and pictures in the iron box must be. I’ve gone over them all. There’s a series of photos of the coast, the glacier valley—water-color drawings, too—and a couple of sketch maps. I’m no sailor, but I know I can find my way there; and if I once get to that valley, I’ll find the emerald mine, if I have to turn over all the ground with my bare hands. It can’t be far, after all, and the old professor did no blasting nor digging.”
“Carroll,” said the surgeon, “so far you’ve told me nothing but lies. This yarn is the wildest-sounding of all. I’m damned if I believe a word of it!”
“Good God!” Carroll cried. “Can’t you recognize truth when you see it? Of course I told you a crooked yarn. We couldn’t have let out the truth then, could we? But now it’s different. There’s just you and me left in it. I’ve got the maps and prints. You’ve got the money, and half of that is coming to me, you know very well. It’ll take five or six thousand dollars to fit out our expedition. I’ve got less than two hundred dollars in the world. Neither of us can do anything alone. Why, man, in a case like this you’d make a partnership with the devil, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, that’s as it may be,” said Lang. “But you’re making one great mistake. That money in my trust box isn’t mine. It belongs to Miss Morrison. If there’s anything in this emerald story, it belongs to her, too. I have absolutely nothing to do with the whole thing. Go and talk to her about it.”
“I don’t talk to any woman about such a thing!” Carroll ejaculated, staring. “Are you clear crazy, Lang, or are you trying to put another bluff over me? Look here, if that stone of Floyd’s had been perfect it would have been worth fifty thousand dollars. Emeralds come high; they rank next to diamonds. We’ve been studying up about them. Most all the emeralds of the world come from the west coast of South America. There’s an enormous mine in Colombia. I’ve got all the right dope. Morrison hit on a pocket, or deposit. Those bits of rock were what they call emerald matrix. There’s dead sure to be plenty more where those big stones came from, and good ones, too. It wouldn’t take many of that size to make a million dollars.”
Carroll’s olive face was deeply flushed. His eyes positively glowed with earnestness, and his hands trembled. Lang was secretly impressed and less incredulous than he appeared. It was impossible that any one could so feign emotion.
“I tell you that I’ve got nothing to do with it,” he said again. “It’s all in Miss Morrison’s hands.”
Exasperated, baffled, evidently believing not a word of it, Carroll looked at him.