“I only wish some one else had been in my place, for they would have to tell what I found.”
“And what was it, Ben?” asked the captain.
Before he got a reply Poker Dick spoke up:
“Cap’n, Ben hes a heart like a woman an’ don’t want to tell on his old pard Dick, so I’ll spit the story out myself, an’ I’ll feel better, for it gives me a awful bad taste in my mouth an’ pain in my heart.
“Yer see, cap’n, I was guard ter-night. Lately ther boys hes won all my dust from me, an’ I got low-spirited; an’ thet devil, Kent King, told me he’d give me a belt o’ gold an’ some dimints’ ef I’d——”
“By Heaven! You turned traitor and accepted his bribe?” cried Captain Dash, in angry tones.
“Jist so; you hes cut ther story down to ther kernel darn quick, cap’n. He give me nine hundred dollars in gold slugs, an’ two dimints as was worth five times thet much. Ben hes ’em. He found ’em on me. Knowin’ as I was dead broke afore, he sighted my leetle game, knowed I were a darn rascal, and played ther trump on me, an’ here I is.”
“And thet blow on your head, sir?” the captain asked.
“Thet were a keepsake, given me as a partin’ present from Kent King. Arter he hed gi’n me his gold an’ dimints, an’ I fotched him his saddle, he jist tapped me on ther head, ter get back his wealth, I reckon. But ther boys must hev crowded him too fast.”
“And you found this belt of gold upon him, Tabor?”