"I don't do my hiding in daylight, but when it's good and dark, I'm going to put out. I would tell you the hiding-place, for I trusts you both—but if you knowed where it was, and if officers of the law come to you for information, you'd be in a box; I know you wouldn't give me up, but neither would you swear to a lie. Not knowing where I hides, your consciences are as free as mine that hasn't never been bridled."
Wilfred asked, "But when Lahoma writes, how will you get her letter?"
"You or Bill will go for the mail. If a letter comes, you'll take it to that crevice into which Miss Sellimer was drug by that big Injun, and you'll wait in there till I comes, not opening that letter till I am with you. We'll read it together, down in the hollow where poor Miss Sellimer's life was saved by Lahoma; then you two will go back to the cove, and leave me to sneak away to my hiding-place which may be near and may be far. When you get a letter, bring your ladder and the lantern, and be sure nobody is watching you—because if you let Red Kimball or any of his gang follow you to that hiding-place, you'd have to see a man killed—and such as that ain't no sight for eyes as civilized as Wilfred's, or as old as Bill's."
CHAPTER XVI
THE ONYX PIN
When the next letter came from Lahoma, Wilfred Compton and Bill Atkins hurried to the crevice in the mountain-top according to agreement. It was a cloudless afternoon, but at the farther end of the retreat the light of the lantern was necessary for its perusal. Brick Willock, who was there before them, read the letter in silence before handing it to the young man to read aloud.
"It's just addressed to me, this time," he remarked grimly, in explanation of his proprietary act; "they ain't no foolishness of 'Dear Brick and Bill.' But I treats you as friends should be treated, and lays before you everything Lahoma has found out. For Brick Willock, he says 'Friends is better friends when they don't know all about each other,' says he; and I tells you only what Lahoma has been told, according."
Wilfred took the letter, tingling with excitement. The strained watching and waiting for the sudden appearance of an unknown Red Kimball had made his bed in the cabin as sleepless as had been Bill's pallet in the dugout. They squatted about the lantern that rested on the stone floor, Willock always with eyes directed toward the narrow slit in the ceiling that they might not be taken by surprise.
The long natural corridor was bare, except for the old Spanish sword hanging upon the wall. A stout cedar post, firmly fixed in the extremity of the walls, formed a rude barricade against the abyss of unknown depth that yawned a few yards away from where they sat. This railing and the sword were the only evidences of man's possession, save for the ladder that would presently be carried back to the cove. No inquiries were made as to how Brick came and went, where he found food and a bed, or how he happened to be present at the precise moment of the arrival of the bearers of news.