“Young feller, you keep still. Don’t you say nothin’; that’s what! But ye needn’t think Duff lays it up ag’in ye that ye came onto us sudden-like that night at Quilling’s place. He don’t remember nothin’ about it, I don’t s’pose. Why, him an’ me had only got to Quilling’s that same night; an’ of course we didn’t know what Quilling wanted till we got there. He was jest a-goin’ to show us that letter or piece o’ one, when you chaps come along. Quilling didn’t know himself jest what the thing meant, but he knew it told about money buried in the ground an’ he knew that this chap Nesbit had done good business liftin’ jew’lry an’ coin from folks along the roads an’ places. He knew enough to guess pretty straight as how Duff would be the man to help find the other part of the letter, ’cause he had seen Nesbit have it, an’ he sent fer him, an’ Duff an’ me went together. But while yer talkin’, boy, only ye ain’t allowed to talk none, an’ I’ll knock yer blasted brains out if ye do, this here ain’t my reg’lar trade, an’ I vow, if there’s much more killin’ an’ slavin’ fer Duff, I’m a-goin’ t’ quit it.”
Dexter paused and put a few sticks of wood on the fire.
“It’s ’bout time Duff was comin’ back,” he said, as he sat down again. “Duff’s gone to hunt yer pardner an’ if he don’t give him what he wants, he’s goin’ to knock yer blasted brains out an’ scalp ye jest the same as though that Injun witch had did it, an’ it’ll be laid onto the Injun. Duff’s wrote a letter on bark with charcoal that says that, an’ now ye know what yer chances be.”
John was far from comfortable as he learned Duff’s monstrous plan. He could not believe that Ree would surrender the letter, which was not his property, but the property of Theodore Hatch, without a struggle, and he knew that Duff would not hesitate to kill. The result, it was all too likely, would be that Duff, in one of his furious passions would commit murder and John Jerome would never greet his friends again.
“Ye see I was jest a farm hand an’ never was in the line as Duff was in, until he got me into this one, sayin’ it would only be a job of findin’ a box o’ gold buried in the ground, an’ I could handle a spade so good,” Dexter continued, talking as though to himself. “But it ain’t been like he said. I ain’t no coward like Quilling, but if this here scheme Duff’s now workin’ don’t do the business, I’m goin’ to quit—I’m goin’ to quit.”
Dexter shook his head gloomily. It was undoubtedly a “blue” day for him. He rose and walked out just beyond the mouth of the cave.
“I’m goin’ to quit,” the fellow murmured despondently again, and his words were as a prophecy.
From a clump of bushes above, at the top of the steep hill across the ravine, clearly visible through the bare, gray trees, there came a puff of smoke; a rifle sounded, and Dexter, shading his eyes with one hand, looking down the valley in search of Duff, whom he would see never again, sprang high into the air. As though it were some inanimate thing his body fell backward at full length upon the ground, and from his temple trickled a tiny stream of crimson, staining the snow.
So ended the life of Dexter. If the thrilling adventures that awaited John Jerome, his prisoner, and Return Kingdom on the edge of civilization urge you to further reading, turn with me the pages of “The Lone Indian” that together we may learn the full history of the little cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga.
W. B. C.