“Who is?” demanded Case. “We’ve been trying to tell it to each other ever since you came on the Rambler that night at the pass, and have made up our minds that we don’t know it!”
“Of course not,” Gran said, and closed his eyes, leaving Alex and Case half crazy with curiosity!
When the train drew up, the first man to leave the parlor coach made a rush for the Sergeant and shook him warmly by the hand. This done he looked Clay over with a curious smile on a face recently shaved clean.
The man was at least six foot three, and had very long arms. Also a slight limp! Clay sat down on a trunk and waited.
CHAPTER XXIV.—MORE SURPRISES THAN ONE.
“This,” the boy heard Sergeant Wilcox saying, directly, “is Mr. Richard Miller, of Chicago. And this, Mr. Miller, is Mr. Clayton Emmett, also known as ‘Clay,’ recently from Chicago!”
Clay heard the words dimly. The world seemed turning around upside down. Here was the man he had been accusing of all sorts of crime, from simple larceny to murder, on good terms with the chief, in that district, of the mounted police! It was enough to turn the lad’s head.
“I thought—”
Then Clay decided not to say what he had been thinking, and the three set out for the boat, passing DeYoung and the surgeon on the way. They both regarded the officer with scowls and threatening gestures.
At the boat the boy lifted on his bunk when Mr. Miller approached and extended his arms. The man dropped down at his side.