Kingdom’s interest and pleasure in the discovery John had made could scarcely have been greater. But putting the subject aside for the moment, he gave his companion all the interesting information obtained from Fishing Bird, and the two then set about to plan their next movements. Quite naturally both wished to pay another visit to the strange camp in the gully. To do so, however, involved much risk. Lone-Elk might be, in fact, probably was, still loitering near. Again, if the occupant or occupants of the camp discovered that their presence was known to other white men, they would be very likely to change their location, and, no doubt, do all in their power to conceal every evidence of the lead mine’s existence.
“We’ve got to come upon them by surprise and not only capture the murderers of the men at the salt springs, but find the mine at the same time,” said John.
“If the mine is there, which we don’t know, but only believe,” Ree made answer. “Still,” he went on, “there’s only one other way to do it, and that is to keep a watch on the camp all the time till we find out more about it. Lone-Elk,—bless him!—is in the way of that program. And there’s another thing to think about, which is, what are we going to do with the murderers when we capture them!”
“Well, we can hardly say,‘Come along now, and be hanged, as you deserve,’” Jerome suggested.
For some time Kingdom was silent. At last he said, very thoughtfully and slowly:
“John, you must go to Fort Pitt or to Wayne’s army. You must tell whoever is in charge just what has been found at the ‘lick’ and in the woods here. Bring back four or five good men and we’ll seize the camp down there and everything and everybody in it. The men you bring can take the murderers back for trial, and I only hope we can find some evidence that will send the Seneca along with them.”
“But if we do, we may as well pull up stakes and go along ourselves, Ree. The Delawares would say we had been acting as spies for Wayne, sure!”
“We can tell what to do about that when the time comes,” was the answer. “We know now that it won’t do for us to attack the camp alone. We’d have a whole pack of warriors down on us before we could get a day’s march away. We know that a murder has been committed and I hope we know what our solemn duty is, even if the finding of the lead mine be left out of consideration altogether.”
“Wouldn’t you rather find the mine without letting everybody else know about it? I would,” John argued. “Not but what I like your plan all right,” he added, “but if Wayne’s army gets to find out there is a lead mine, and finds out where it is, too, I don’t see how the fact that we know of it, the same as Lone-Elk, is going to do us any good with King Pipe.”
This reasoning puzzled Kingdom. In one way John was right, and he was forced to admit it. But he argued that, as law-abiding citizens, it was their duty to expose the murder that had been committed; that if they did not do so, they were parties to the crime, the more particularly so since they held in their possession evidence so positive against the slayers of the two men at the springs.