All through the day which came after the night that witnessed the surprise of Myra, the waif, by Tom Terror and his Thugs, six Wolves watched with the fatal cord in their hands for the return of the boy lyncher.
But he did not come. Back in the cavern proper, with that ghastly colouring which comes to the faces of the dying, the white Thug reclined on the rude cot. His wound had been roughly but well dressed, and the gentle hands of the girl of mystery had moistened his lips with water.
All at once the fair girl started, for an Indian had leaped to the cot, and was talking in low tones to the wounded Thug.
Her heart seemed to stand still. She felt that Harry was coming, that he was about to walk in the death-trap which cunning had prepared for him.
How she strained her ears to catch a sentence, a word of the Indian’s communication. As well she might have listened for the sound of a zephyr! But she saw the giant’s eyes flash while his hireling talked; she caught the quick nod of approval that he gave, and saw the Thug bound toward the entrance again.
“Why don’t Dan come back?” murmured the cut-throat. “I recollect how he left shortly after he saw the mole on the gal’s face. The time has come!” she heard him say as if the words gave him a sort of wolfish pleasure. “Thar’s to be a good deal of dyin’ with boots on in the old Cut-throat. Whar’s the gal?”
“Here, Captain Tom,” answered Myra, and the next moment she stood before the robber of the gulch, from whom a few hours since she would have fled with a shriek.
“So hyar ye ar’!” he said. “I’m goin’, never to come back. I’ll never pull my boots off ag’in. Stay hyar till somebody comes; it won’t be me; it won’t be Deadly Dan. But, somebody will come an’ take you away. You’re the biggest bonanza in Colorado, ef you ar’ but a mite. One o’ these days you’ll be a gold queen. Dan got on the wrong trail, an’ now he’s run away from the right one. Run off an’ left the work for my boys with the cords. I told ’im to give you the strings last night, but I’m kinder glad thet Rosebud interfered an’ saved yer life.”
The old fellow dropped Myra’s hand, and started toward the mouth of the cave where two bronzed faces waited for him; but the girl bounded forward.
“You haven’t disclosed anything!” she cried. “What you have said makes me curious. Whose child am I? Captain Tom, will you not lift the veil of mystery that has hung before me so long? Who is the boy?”