“Any word to send to anybody?”
“Yes, there is,” replied Smirker, “and I came near forgetting it. You can tell the fellows below that the captain’s cub has got back at last.”
“What cub?”
“Why, Julian; the one he’s been looking for so long. We’ll finger some of that money and find out where that hidden gold mine is now.”
“Does this—this cub know where it is?”
“No, but Silas Roper does. Sanders was here this morning and told me the whole secret.”
“The captain hasn’t got hold of Silas, has he?”
“Not yet, but he will have him before long. It is a little the queerest thing I ever heard of, this plan of the captain’s is,” continued Smirker, placing one hand on the horn of Julian’s saddle, and settling into an easy position against the side of the horse as if he had a long story to tell, “and it shows what a head he’s got on his shoulders, and what education will do for a man. You see—but in the first place you know that he is no more of a Mortimer than I am?”
Julian, not daring to trust himself to speak, nodded his head, pulled out his handkerchief ostensibly for the purpose of wiping his forehead, but really to conceal the sudden pallor which he knew overspread his face, and the man went on:
“The captain’s playing a deep game, and he’s going to succeed in it, too. He’s making a decoy duck of Julian—using him to keep Silas Roper about here until he can catch him; and when he once gets hold of him and finds out where the money and the nuggets are, he’ll make short work with both of them.”