The boy saw very plainly that Bob and Jake wanted to make their escape from the miners sure; so Julian collected some bacon and hard-tack, which he wrapped up in a blanket and fixed to sling over his shoulders. There was one thing that encouraged him—"if he did not go to the miners, the miners would come after him"—and proved that they must in some way have had their suspicions aroused against Bob and Jake. Jack also busied himself in the same way, and in a very few minutes the boys were ready to start.
"I must say you are tolerably cool ones, to let ten or fifteen thousand dollars be taken from you in this way," remarked Bob, who was lost in admiration of the indifferent manner in which the boys obeyed all orders. "I have seen some that would have been flurried to death by the loss of so much money."
"If Claus, here, told the truth, they have a whole block of buildings to fall back on," answered Jake. "But maybe that is a lie, too."
"No, he told you the truth there," said Julian. "He tried to cheat us out of those buildings while we were in St. Louis—"
"I never did it in this world!" declared Claus, emphatically.
"Did you not claim to be our uncle?" asked Julian.
"Uncle!" ejaculated Jack. "Great Scott!"
Claus did not attempt to deny this. Bob and Jake were almost within reach of him, and they looked hard at him to see what he would say, and he was afraid to affirm that there was no truth in the statement for fear of something that might happen afterward. He glanced at the boys, who were looking steadily at him, and Jack moved a step or two nearer to him with his hands clenched and a fierce frown on his face, all ready to knock him down if he denied it; so Claus thought it best not to answer the question at all.
"You won't think it hard of me if I hit him a time or two?" asked Jack.
"Come here and behave yourself," said Julian, walking up and taking Jack by the arm. "I think, if the truth was known, he is in a worse fix than we are."