“Yes. He said we were thieves, the last one of us, and we asked him to take it back and never show his face in our camp again. He left in a mighty hurry, and I guess he was going somewhere.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Chisholm, with a sidelong glance at me. “Well, you send all the boys up here. We have something here now that will put a different look on the matter.”
“Now, Bob,” continued our spokesman, “we haven’t had a chance before to tell you how pleased we are at your good fortune. Shake!”
“Oh, I took it for granted,” said Bob, accepting the cowboys’ hands, one after the other. “You have been so good to me ever since I lost my cattle that I knew you sympathized with me. I am glad to receive your congratulations.”
We stood there at the wagon and saw the cowboys ride away and Elam engaged in conversation with Tom, and then I motioned to Mr. Chisholm to follow me off on one side. There were two things that I wanted to speak to him about.
“You know when Henderson read that will, do you not?” I began.
“I thought I did,” he replied. “You had him cornered so that he couldn’t get away or destroy it?”
“Yes, sir. He read it rapidly, much more so than I could have done if I had had the paper, and he wanted to get at the name of the bank where the money was kept on deposit—that is, where the bonds were kept. Then I interfered and the men took the paper away from him.”
“Well?” said Mr. Chisholm.
“He said I was too late,” I continued. “And then he gave me to understand that he had got all he wanted. He said that the next time I saw him would be in Austin——”