“Yes, they can. They are working for money now, and they will travel night and day.”
“Well, let’s go and see Mr. Chisholm. We can’t do anything as long as we stand talking here. I don’t know where his camp is; do you?”
No, I didn’t know where the camp was, but that made no difference to me. The only way I could find it was to look for it, and that I proceeded to do, leaving Tom outside on the prairie. We walked along the edge of the willows until we saw a light shining through them, and then I walked in. It proved to be Mr. Chisholm’s camp. There were a dozen men standing around in little groups talking about the incidents of Mr. Davenport’s death, and a little apart from all of them sat Mr. Chisholm, smoking, as usual.
“I guess Henderson didn’t feel very good over the decision we reached, giving him the money and Bob the receipts,” said one of the men. “Five hundred dollars is what he got, and that aint nothing to him. Where did he come from, anyhow?”
“He’s a speculator,” said another. “He don’t do anything, but just buys and sells cattle. He’s got a nice little thing in having Mr. Davenport’s cattle, if they were only in good trim.”
“But that aint what he wants,” said a third. “Mr. Davenport has got some money somewhere in some bank or another, and he wants authority to draw it out.”
That was all I wanted to hear, so I stepped up to Mr. Chisholm and gave him a friendly nudge. Then I walked off to the place where I had left Tom Mason, and he followed along after me. I could see that he was very much depressed, so after he had gone a short distance out of hearing of the men who stood at the fire, I said:
“Mr. Chisholm, Tom Mason thinks there is another pocket book.”
“There now,” said he, and he stopped as suddenly as though I had aimed a blow at him. “That thing has been running in my head, too. But what made Tom think of it?”
“Here he is, and he can explain the matter for himself,” I answered. “Now, Tom, give it to Mr. Chisholm just as you gave it to me.”