“Of course I’ll help you,” Alex answered. “I don’t like your ways, but I’m sore on King. He came on board and mussed up the furniture and tied up the dog, and marooned Clay and Case on a desert island!”
“That must have been nice!” Don grinned, going to a heap of pancakes which had been cooked for breakfast and left to grow cold because of the excitement of the time. “I’m going to eat these few dozen pancakes while you converse!” he added. “Why don’t you like my ways?”
“Eat away!” Alex returned. “You’re always hungry when you come on board the Rambler. “I’ll get you coffee in a short time.”
“There’s nothing to eat in the desert,” Don said, stuffing his mouth with cakes. “Besides, I’m going to board with you all the way up the Colorado, so I may as well begin now to make you acquainted with my appetite. But you didn’t tell me why you don’t like my ways.”
“Why didn’t you let us know you took the money?” asked Alex, at a venture, almost trembling as he awaited a reply.
“Didn’t you get my receipt for it?” asked Don. “It was on the silk wrapper. I wrote in there! Where is the wrapper?”
Alex took the silk from a pocket and examined it. Surely enough, there, on the edge, were the words: “Received contents. Don.”
“Why, you old fraud!” shouted Alex, overjoyed at the discovery. “You old river thief! Why didn’t you wake us up and tell us you were after the money? You’ve made us a lot of trouble!”
Don grinned and continued his work on the cakes, and Alex finally put the coffee pot over the coils and made him a cup of hot drink while he told of running across the point and floating down to the Rambler on a plank he found in the water. Alex grabbed him, then, and demanded to know where the money was.
“Let go!” yelled Don. “I’ve got it in my belt, and I didn’t want any one but you to know I took it because I didn’t want the others to know where it was, if anybody should come on board and ask about it, and, then,” he went on, with a sly wink, “I made the receipt a little blind because I wanted to teach you not to go to sleep with fifty thousand dollars in gold notes lying in your lap! That was careless of you!”