"It belongs to us all now," said the lad, "though I'll admit I was the original owner. I think Mr. Brady will just round out our band. I'm for offering him a full partnership."
"Then you do the talkin'," said the Little Giant. "It's right that it should come from you."
When Brady awoke many hours later three very serious faces confronted him, and his acute mind saw at once that he was about to receive a communication of weight.
"It looks like a committee," he said with solemn importance. "Who is the spokesman?"
"I am," replied Will, "and what we have to say to you is really of importance, of vast importance. Mr. Bent has been looking many years for gold, but has never yet found a grain of it. Now he has given up his independent search, and is joining with Mr. Boyd and me in a far bigger hunt. You've been looking eight or ten years, you say, for the gigantic beaver colony, but have never found it. Now we want you to give up that hunt for the time, and join us, because we need you much."
"Your words have an earnest sound, young man, and I know that you and your comrades are honest, but I do not take your full meaning."
"It is this," said Will, and he produced from his secret pocket the precious map. "My father, who was a captain in the army, found a great mine of gold, but before he could work it, or even make any preparations to do so, he was called for the Civil War, in which he fell. But he left this map that tells me how to reach it somewhere in the vast northwestern mountains. To locate it and get out the treasure I need fighting men, the best fighting men the world can furnish, wilderness fighters, patient, enduring and full of knowledge. I have two such in Mr. Boyd and Mr. Bent, but we need just one more, and we have agreed that you should be the fourth, if you will favor us by entering into the partnership. It is full of danger, as you know. We have already had a fight with the Sioux, and another with a band of outlaws, led by Martin Felton."
A spark leaped up in the stern eye of Stephen Brady.
"I am a fur hunter," he said, "though there is little prospect of success for me now, owing to the Indian wars, but I have spent all my manhood years among dangers. Perhaps I should feel lonely if they were absent, and you may dismiss that idea."
"I thought so. Will you enter into full partnership with us in this great enterprise? Mr. Bent has appraised your full value as a fighting man in this crisis at a quarter of a million dollars, and we know that the mine contains at least a million. I beg you not to refuse. We need your strong arm and great heart. You will be conferring the favor upon us."