He looked across at the professor, who had paused in his ablutions to look in the direction of the tent, and now stood, a comical enough looking object, his face covered in soap-suds, watching for the reappearance of the prospectors.
Dick and he exchanged a glance of intelligence, and Dick took a step towards the old man, intending to whisper to him the news of what he had found the day before; but before he could do so there came a shout from the tent, followed by a volley of oaths and ejaculations, the sound of a scuffle, and out into the open burst the two prospectors, locked together in a desperate struggle.
"Hound, schwein-hund, robber!" gasped Grosman, as, with his face purple with rage and exertion he temporarily got the better of his long and wiry opponent, and bore him back; "scoundrel that you are you could not play straight even with me! Where are the diamonds hound where have you hidden them?"
"Yes, where are they? Own up, you thief!" chorused the two experts, who, pallid and debauched looking, now stood beside the two struggling men: and Dick now noticed that Gilderman held the small strong box and that it was open, and empty. The diamonds had gone!
CHAPTER IV
The whole camp had now clustered round the fallen men, the professor grotesque in his thickly lathered face, Dick intensely interested and enjoying this fall-out among thieves, the experts and financial men voluble and uneasy.
And still Grosman knelt upon his slighter opponent, and still he gasped curses and questions; keeping so tight a grip upon Junes' throat that his eyes were starting from his head and he could scarce breathe, much less answer.
"Here loosen him a bit!" said Dick, grasping the big man by the shoulder. "Do you hear? You'll choke the man and how the blazes can he answer you when you hold him like that? Now then what's the matter?"
"The diamonds are gone," said the glib Gilderman. "We each have a key on a chain round our necks. They were safe when we went to bed. The box was locked then now it is open and the stones are gone."
"He has them, the hound," said Grosman, "we had arranged, schwein- hund," he yelled again, "it was to have been to-morrow night and you have stolen them from me; where have you buried them?"