“Stranger—I can do you a turn, and I can do it twenty-five thousand cheaper than he. I can get you out of here—and the gals, too, for I know a secret passage. There’s only Bill and me and one other man knows of it, and that other man is about past knowing anything—for ’twas him they brought in dying just now. He is shot through the throat, and he can’t speak!”
“Can I trust you?” asked Mainwaring eagerly.
“You’ve got to, you can’t help yourself. And I’ve got to trust you, too, for the captain told me he cleaned you out of all you had on you. But I looked in your eye out there by the fire, and there isn’t any lie in it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not talkin’ for thanks—I’m talkin for money! I’m sick of this kind of life. I haven’t been treated fair, anyway. They made me captain and then broke me, because I wouldn’t go down to the railroad and run trains off. But that isn’t business. Swear that if I’ll get you clear, you’ll give me seventy-five thousand, good money.”
“I will, on my sacred honor and by my soul!”
“Well, I s’pose that is as good as an oath. The next thing is the plan to get you out.”
“You understand the girls and the man Ben are in the bargain?”
“Yes—and there’s the trouble. I could get you off from here in twenty minutes. But that Lize is as sharp as a ferret. Bill knew what he was about when he told her to look out for ’em.”
“I will not move without them.”