“Of all the mean, sneaking courts that ever I heard of——” began Frank.
“Now, Frank, that will do,” said Lem, taking him by the arm and leading him away. “I know what you want to say, and whenever you get to talkin’ you let out some swear words that don’t sound well. Mr. Chisholm is bossin’ this thing.”
“But he never asked us to tell our story,” continued Frank. “We uns could have knocked that fellow’s case higher than the moon.”
“An’ he never told his own,” said Elam.
“What good would it have done to tell everything we knew when there was no will to back it up?” said Mr. Chisholm, throwing back a brand upon the fire with which he had lighted his pipe. “When we get the will we’ll talk to him. Bob, did you ever know your father to have two pocket-books like the one you have got in your clothes?”
“No, sir. I never saw him have but the one,” said Bob, taking out the pocket-book and looking at it. “The man has got everything father owned. But, believe me, I don’t care for that. I am young and can easily make a living.”
Mr. Chisholm drew his hand hastily across his eyes, as I had seen him do before, and started off for his own camp, while the rest of us sat down to think the matter over. I never saw men and boys so completely done up as we were, who were sitting around that fire, and I will venture to say that Bob thought less about the money than we did. He had been brought up in the belief that it was all his own, and now he had lost it. I tell you I felt sorry for him. He sat gazing into the fire for a short time, then spoke a few words to Elam, who went off and returned with his blankets. He made up a bed under the wagon and laid down there with Bob. Tom Mason was the second one who was badly perplexed. He would gaze steadily into the fire, as if he there hoped to find a solution to some problem he was working out in his mind, and then at me, moving his lips, as he always did when anything troubled him, and finally he arose and gave me a nod, which I readily understood. I followed him through the willows, and finally stood on the edge of the prairie, where the cattle, having got their fill of the water, were lying down. There were no sentries out to-night. A stampede was the last thing we had to fear.
“Say, Carlos, did you hear what Mr. Chisholm had to say to Bob about his father having another pocket-book like the one he had in his clothes?” he whispered, after looking all around to make sure that there was no one within hearing. “Now, it has just occurred to me that perhaps there is another one, and that Mr. Davenport put it into his pocket.”
“But Bob says there isn’t any other,” said I, jumping at the conclusion. That very same thing had been running in my own mind, and I was anxious to hear what Tom thought about it. “It looks like the pocket-book that he slammed in his hands when he told us his story.”
“That may be; but I tell you he has got another,” said Tom earnestly. “The other one is hidden somewhere about the house.”