“Yes, it would,” I replied. “But he would have to give it up to the paymaster.”
“Oh, he would, would he?” exclaimed the fierce-looking man. “If he found it, it would be his’n, wouldn’t it?”
“You needn’t look for those boys to do anything like that,” said Henderson, with a sneer. “They would give it up to the paymaster and get five hundred dollars for it. It is a big thing to be honest!”
“Well, I think we’ve made as much as you have by being honest,” said I. “You don’t seem to be loaded down with money.”
“But I would have had half a million if it hadn’t been for you and others like you,” muttered Henderson between his clenched teeth.
“You had all the chance in the world,” I replied. “No one came near you when you were searching that house. You see luck wasn’t on your side.”
“What did you come here for anyhow?” asked one of the men. “Folks say that you came here to buy cattle, but I’ll be switched if I don’t believe you came here to help Davenport. You aint got no money to buy cattle.”
This started us off on a new topic of conversation, but Henderson seemed to find fault with everything I said. I couldn’t reply to a single question but it would start some spiteful remark on his part. I really did not see how the men stood it. Finally Coyote Bill came back, and I noticed that his pipe was empty. He had smoked it out with the chief in gaining his point, and I wanted to hear him say that he had obtained permission to torture me at sunrise; but he said nothing of the kind, so that was one lie of Henderson’s nailed.
“Carlos, you had better go to sleep,” were the first words he spoke. “We have got a long ride before us in the morning, and you won’t feel a bit like getting up.”
“You want to watch him close for fear that he will escape,” chimed in Henderson, who could not possibly let a chance go without saying something.