“I allowed it was you, Ned, but I didn’t know,” said one of them, advancing and extending his hand, which Sanders shook cordially. “You’re dressed up like a gentleman. What luck?”
“I’ve got him.”
“You have?” cried both the men in concert.
“It’s a fact. He’s in a hotel not more’n a half a mile from here—Julian Mortimer himself, an’ nobody else. I’ve had the wust kind of a time a gettin’ him. Dick Mortimer was thar ahead of me.”
“Sho!”
“Yes. An’ we’re goin to have a wusser time, I am afraid, gettin’ him out of the town to the prairy. He’s sharper’n two steel traps, that boy is, an’ somehow he don’t like the looks of me. He knows a heap about himself, an’ is too smart to swallow a single one of the lies I told him. He’s goin’ to cut loose from me, I can see it in his eye; an’ whatever we do must be done to once. He wants to jine a wagon train, if he can find one.”
“Wal, he can,” replied one of the men, “‘cause thar’s one goin’ out to-day. Silas Roper’s goin’ along.”
“Silas Roper!” replied Sanders savagely. “He’s allers in the way. He musn’t see the boy, ’cause if he does our goose is cooked—done brown. Come with me to the hotel, an’ as we go along I will think up some way to manage this business.”
Sanders jumped off the dry-goods box and walked rapidly away, closely followed by his two companions. When they arrived within sight of the hotel he stopped, for they saw Julian standing on the steps. Sanders’ friends recognized him at once, and declared that they would have known him if they had met him on the other side of the world. They held a short, whispered conversation, after which the two men retreated into a doorway out of sight, and Sanders kept on and accosted Julian.