“I am not,” Clay answered, wonderingly. “I spoke too hastily. Come, Mr. Sheriff, tell me how you know anything about that leather bag.”
“I don’t know much about it, that’s the trouble,” was the reply. “I wish I knew more. Now, tell me this: Have you an appointment with this boy farther down the river? Do you expect to meet him again during your trip?”
Clay replied that he hoped to, and the sheriff said little more on the subject. He expected the sheriff to ask for the key to the deposit box, but he did not.
[CHAPTER XXIII—A NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS]
“I believe,” Clay declared, after a long pause, during which the voices of negroes along the levee came softly through the night, “that you know something about the three persons we are just now interested in.”
“Name the three,” laughed the sheriff. “Who are they?”
“First, the man we have always called Red, the Robber.”
“You have referred to him before, my boy.”
“But you gave me no satisfaction,” urged Clay, eagerly. “Do you know him?”
“I have heard of a man who sometimes answers to the name of Red. What next?”