“Go on,” said Wilson, breathing a bit more rapidly.
“Do you know him? Maybe you caught a glimpse of him that day you were at the house. He was there.”
“No, I don’t know him,” answered Wilson, “but––but I have heard of him. It seems that he is everywhere.”
“He is a queer one. He can get from one place to another more quickly and with less noise than anyone I ever met. He’s a bit uncanny that way as well as other ways. However, as I said, he’s been square with me and it didn’t take us long to get together on a proposition for combining our interests; I to furnish guns, ammunition, and as many men as possible, he to fix up a deal with the old party, do the scheming, and furnish a few hundred Indians. I’ve had the boat all ready for a long while, and Stubbs, one of Dad’s old skippers, out for men. Yesterday he jumped at me from Carlina, where I thought he was, 10,000 miles 148 away by sea, and gave the word. Now he is off again on the Columba and is to meet me in Choco Bay.”
Danbury relighted his pipe and added between puffs over the match:
“Now you know the whole story and where we’re going. Are you with us?”
“Yes,” answered Wilson, “I am with you.”
But his head was whirling. Who was this man who struck at him in the dark, and with whom he was now joined in an expedition against Carlina? One thing was sure; that if the priest was on the boat with Sorez it boded ill for the latter. It was possible the girl might never reach Carlina.
“Now for terms. I’ll give you twenty a week and your keep to fight this out with me. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes,” answered Wilson.