Jimmie looked at his chum in amazement. The light back there was not good, but Ned saw several questions in the boy’s eyes.
“Liu can protect you, can’t he?” Ned asked.
“That’s what I don’t know,” was the reply. “He will do his best, of course, but his best might not be good enough.”
Ned was thinking fast. If he permitted the boy to leave, the fact of his escape would be likely to scatter the outlaws—and he very much wished to keep them together for a short time.
“I think,” he said, “that we have found the men we want—with the goods. If you leave now they will make a quick getaway. You see that, don’t you?”
“Of course,” was the reply. “An’ I see, too, that if I remain I’m the one that’s likely to make a quick getaway—to a country no one comes back from.”
“There may be some other way,” Ned said, thoughtfully. “Give me a chance to think it over.”
“Oh, I’ll stay, all right,” Jimmie went on, “if it will do any good. I guess they won’t eat me alive.”
As he spoke the boy put his hand to his eyes and gave them a long rub.
“There’s smoke in here,” he said. “Don’t you smell it?”