"I'm number three!" chimed in Tyrrel.
"Good! Now there only remains to collect our things. I'll see to the pick. I left mine out, to-day, after that. See to your arms and ammunition, and get a store of coffee. It's paid for, remember. Fill your pockets with cold grub, for they may make a search for us, though I hardly think it. Time's too precious for that. Go, now, and keep close guard over your tongues. 'Twould take but a trifle to direct suspicion when we are found gone, and then good-by to our fortune."
"Trust us—we'll be wise as the dove, and so forth," muttered Tyrrel.
The three plotters glided away and soon rejoined the camp. Scarcely had they disappeared from view, when a dark figure cautiously raised itself above the level of the prairie-grass, where it had been concealed in a hollow, and peered curiously after them, a low, disagreeable chuckle breaking from the black-bearded lips.
"Ho! ho! ho! Nate Upshur, you're in luck, my boy! Fust you see the nugget Wythe drops, then you hear Duplin whisper to him an' Tyrrel, and now, best of all, you hear the whole story! Thar's luck in odd numbers—and yet I'm goin' to have a finger in the pie, too."
Then he, too, proceeded stealthily toward the camp, by a circuitous route, entering unobserved.
That night, the sick-camp was the scene of strange acts. And among them was one of terror—of cold-blooded, merciless crime.
As the bright moon sailed from behind a dense cloud, a dark figure silently crept into the shadow cast by a small white tent. From within, as the shadow paused, came the sound of calm, steady breathing. Then the door-flap was raised—the black shadow cautiously glided into the tent, like a venomous serpent in human form. The flap falls behind the serpent, and all is still.
Then—a horrible sound breaks the stillness of the night—a faint, gasping, half-stifled groan of death-agony. Then the shadow reappears, bearing in one hand a blood-stained knife, in the other a small parcel that chinks metallic-like as it falls from its hand. Then all is still.