“If the International’s product didn’t pay me I should,” answered the peanut man, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Oh, hang the International!” retorted White. “I give you fair warning that I’ll not double-cross these young women for you or for any of your confounded outfit. I’ve done enough already, and I am thinking of going to them and making a clean breast of what I have done and then get out.”
“Don’t be a fool, White. Here! Read this.” Haley extended a folded slip of paper to the guide, who opened and read it, the frown deepening on his forehead.
White handed back the slip of paper, and resting his chin in the palm of his hand sat regarding the distant campfire thoughtfully, for they had withdrawn out of earshot of the camp for their conversation.
“Very well!” agreed Hamilton White after a few moments’ reflection. “I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a wolf, but if anything happens here as a result I shall tell why. Remember that, Haley.”
“Oh, well, what’s a bag of peanuts more or less?” was the enigmatic reply of the Man from Seattle. “I’ll take a nip of sleep, if you don’t mind, and be on my way, but not far away.”
The queer visitor took the blanket that had been given to him, and, walking back into the forest a short distance from the camp, lay down and went to sleep. The guide did not turn in at all, but sat silently in the shadows, rifle at his side, thinking and listening. Thus the rest of the night passed, and day began to dawn.
With the breaking of the day Hamilton White climbed the miniature mountain, and drawing a single-barreled glass from his pocket began studying the landscape. A tiny spiral of smoke about two miles to the north claimed his instant attention. He studied it for a few moments. At first the smoke was quite dark, then the spiral grew thin and gray as it waved lazily on the still morning air.
“Someone is building a breakfast fire,” he muttered. “And they know how to build a fire, too. That may be Haley’s crowd. Ah!”
As White slowly swept his glass around he discovered something else that aroused his keen interest. On a distant mountain a flag was being wigwagged. He could not see the operator of it, but he was able to follow the message that was being spelled out.