There was no gold in the van. Vaniman made sure of that after he had satisfied himself as to the identity of Britt.
While the young man was endeavoring to steady his whirling thoughts, striving to plan some course of action by which he could turn the situation to his personal benefit, his attention became taken up in another quarter. Through the trap he heard the voice of the short man. “Quick! Off the road. Nobody's in sight!”
The van lurched and the front of it dipped with a violence that drove Vaniman and Britt against the end. Up came the front and the rear sagged. Then the van went bumping and swaying over uneven ground. The claw-clash of the branches of trees against the sides informed Vaniman that the men had driven into the woods.
When the vehicle halted, the young man crawled forward and huddled down into as compact a ball as he could make of himself.
He heard the three men dismounting. “I'll tell the world that this is a handy night for us, whatever it is that's going on in this burg!” It was the voice of that ever-ready spokesman, the short man. “There would have been a head at every window if we had been obliged to go teaming around all by ourselves, in the night. But they wouldn't have noticed a couple of giraffes and a hippopotamus in that procession.”
“I couldn't see that they even paid any attention to those women squalling upstairs when we did the job,” was the tall man's opinion. “Handy night, say you? Why, that man we braced up to and asked where was Britt's boarding house, he seemed to have so much of his own business on his mind that he wasn't wondering a mite what our business with Britt might be.”
“Get busy!” said the other convict. “That business is only just beginning.”
There was a stir of feet.
“Hold on!” It was the voice of Wagg, mumbling cautiously. “Tie your handkerchiefs over your faces like I'm doing.”
“Right!” the short man agreed. “Always leave 'em guessing when you say good-by!”