"I tell you thar aint no Injuns on the prairy," said the teamster. "That boy don't know what he's talkin' about. The wagon-master says so, and so does every body else in the train, except Brecker, and he's a fool. It'll be the best job you ever done. Twenty thousand dollars aint picked off every bush nowadays."
Archie pricked up his ears when he heard this. The invalid had offered his teamster but five thousand dollars for driving the wagon to Fort Benton, and yet the man was talking as though he had promised him the whole twenty thousand. Archie began to get excited, and believed that the best thing Mr. Brecker could do would be to remain with the wagon train.
"Are you sure that you can depend upon that man?" he inquired, addressing himself to the invalid.
"Who—Mike? Certainly. He is an honest fellow, and I would trust him with my life. Why do you ask that question?"
Archie did not think it best to give a direct answer. The invalid was frightened nearly out of his senses already, and the boy had no desire to increase his alarm by revealing the suspicions that had suddenly arisen in his mind. If Mr. Brecker was willing to trust himself and his twenty thousand dollars on the prairie under the protection of the teamster, it was really no concern of his. If Mike was an honest man, however, he was certainly keeping bad company, and Archie thought it might be a good plan to keep his eyes open and be prepared for any emergency. He was sure that something exciting would happen during the ride to the Old Bear's Hole. While he was thinking the matter over, the two men approached the wagon, and Mike introduced the new-comer as his friend Bob Frost, an old guide and Indian fighter.
"He is just the man we want," said the invalid. "I shall feel safe now."
"In course you can feel safe," replied Frost, with a braggadocio air that made Archie put him down as a coward at once. "Thar aint Injuns enough on the prairy to skeer me. I'll take you through to Fort Benton without no trouble. 'Taint wuth while to have that ar youngster taggin' arter us, though," he added, glancing at Archie.
"Why, he will show us where to go," replied Mr. Brecker.
"We don't need him, and he can't go," said Frost, decidedly. "I know the way to Fort Benton better nor he does."
"I don't see how my presence will interfere with you in any way," said Archie. "It was I who first proposed Fort Benton as a place of refuge, and I shall go there, whether you are willing or not."