“No,” I said; “but we are going on tramp now up to Fort Elk.”
“Yes,” said Esau, “that’s what we’re going to do; but I don’t quite see what we’re to do with our boxes.”
“Leave them in charge, as I shall mine, at this settlement,” said Gunson. “You’ll have just to make a bundle in your blanket that you can carry easily. I shall do the same, and we may as well go on together, and protect one another as we did last night.”
He laughed and looked at Esau, who coloured up. “But we are going to Fort Elk,” I said.
“So am I,” said Gunson, coolly; and I saw Esau give quite a start, and look at me with a countenance full of dismay.
Gunson saw it, and went on quietly—
“I did not mean to go on there, only up this river for some distance, and then off here or there toward the sources of one or other of the streams that run into it from the mountains; but as I have run up against you two, why we may as well go on together; it will give me a chance to knock you both on the head, and then come back here, and get your chests, as well as the money you have in your belts under your clothes.”
I stared at him in a horrified way for a moment, and then, as I seemed to understand him, I burst out laughing.
“Nonsense!” I said.
“Oh no. That’s the idea of me your companion here has taken.”