“Let go yourself. It is from my father. I have more right to it than you have, and I will not let go.
“I am your guardian, Julian, and have the right to control you, as you will quickly learn to your cost, if you do not obey me.”
“I don’t care if you are the King of the Sandwich Islands, you shan’t have this letter. I don’t believe you are my guardian. You have done nothing but tell me one falsehood after another ever since I have been here. You said my father was dead, and he isn’t. He is alive, and I have seen him—seen him, too, in prison and chained to the floor. You say you are my uncle, and you are not. You have no more right to the name you bear than your Mexican servant has—not a bit.”
“Who told you all this?” asked Uncle Reginald, making a strong effort to keep back the tempest of passion which was almost ready to break forth.
“Your man Smirker. I am going to have him arrested as soon as I can go to the fort. He killed a miner and stole his money; he told me so.”
“He told you so!” repeated Reginald Mortimer.
“Yes. He mistook me for a rascally accomplice of his—White-horse Fred.”
“Did Smirker introduce you into Hale’s rancho—I mean the place where you saw this prisoner?”
“No. The horse he gave me in exchange for mine introduced me there.”