"Then I won't even say that, sir. There ain't anything comes easier to me than shuttin' up, I reckon."
After this colloquy, which passed quickly, Durgan was turning upwards when he heard a horse ascending the road. In a few minutes he had met his two negro laborers coming to their work, and, behind them, the doctor from Hilyard, riding, as he usually did, with saddle-bags, his old buff clothes much bespattered.
"The yellow nigger is dead, Mr. Durgan. He died last night with the change of the weather. You told me to keep him alive till you came, but you didn't come. He was a very curious fellow—not half bad; and his last freak was to ask me to come and tell you to look sharp after the visitor he sent you. So, as you're not much out of my way to-day, I've come at once."
He got off his horse, and the two men talked together.
The doctor, whose ordinary round comprised anything within a radius of thirty miles, had not been in Hilyard when the rich traveler from New Orleans arrived and started again. His wealth and imperious airs had impressed the little town, but beyond the fact that he had gained a private interview with the dying prisoner, nothing was known about him.
"And the odd thing is," said the doctor, "that 'Dolphus sent the jailer with every cent he had in the world—about fifteen dollars—to bribe the driver. As to his health, he was decidedly better, and when this Mr. Courthope turned up he seems to have acted like a well man, and made him believe he was well. When I got home there was a report about that the stranger was a wonder-worker, and had cured him. But when I went to him the fever was up. After his last flash in the pan he burnt out in a few hours."
Durgan supposed there might be something of greater importance to justify the doctor's ride. "Perhaps," he said, "he asked you to bring a message to Mr. Alden or Miss Smith?"
"He was a most extraordinary fellow," said the other. "I never was quite sure when he was talking sense and when nonsense. But the message was to you; and it was that you were to keep this Courthope, and write to the chief of police in New York and claim the reward offered in the Claxton case. And you are to give as much of the money to Adam as you think will pay for his wife. He said he'd die easy if I'd give you that tip; and he did die easy."
Durgan smiled sadly at the pathos of the dying nigger's interest in his fellows and his desire for justice to be done. "Did you reckon him wandering?"
"That's just as you choose to take it," said the doctor. "I'm accustomed to hearing secrets and forgetting them. My only business before I forget this one is to ascertain that a dangerous character is not left at large. If you cannot give me that assurance, I suppose I ought to tell the police myself."