“What is it?”
“I will tell you. You remember that stagecoach full of passengers that fooled us some time since?”
“I ought to.”
“I always meant to get on the track of that Melville, who spoiled our plot by overhearing us and giving us away to the passengers. He is very rich, so the boy who was with him told me, and I have every reason to rely upon his statement. Well, I want to be revenged upon him, and, at the same time, to relieve him of the doubtless large sum of money which he keeps with him.”
“I'm with you. Where is he?”
“I have only recently ascertained—no matter how. He lives in a small cabin, far from any other, about eight miles from the mining town of Deer Creek.”
“I know the place.”
“Precisely. No one lives there with him except the boy, and it would be easy enough to rob him. I saw a man from Deer Creek yesterday. He tells me that Melville has bought for the boy a half share in a rich mine, and is thought to have at least five thousand dollars in gold and bills in his cabin.”
Brown's eyes glistened with cupidity.
“That would be a big haul,” he said.