He held up the gems and let them slide through his greedy fingers.
“Luck—luck, such luck!” he muttered. “I’m wadin’ in luck, I’m swimmin’ in it. I’m jes’ natcherly wallerin’ in luck! Hoop-la! Emeralds fer a king! And now they’re right here in my fist.”
Craft and greediness came to him.
“Nobody’s seen me; the boys has gone on with Stockton; and here I’ve got the emeralds. Nobody’s seen me!” He looked all around, and saw not a person anywhere. “By the great tarantulas, why should I divide ’em with the other fellers? Why should I? We expected to git holt of ’em, and divide ’em up, and it would have been a handsome haul fer each of us, even then. Toby Sam put us onto it because he was too durn cowardly to try to make the riffle himself. But now—now they’re mine! Why shouldn’t I hold ’em, and say nothin’? But durn ef I don’t, too!”
He stowed the buckskin bag of emeralds somewhere in an inner pocket of his coat. Then he mounted his horse and rode slowly in the direction taken by the road agents, and by the men and the girl who had pursued them.
“Luck!” he was muttering. “I’m swimmin’, I’m wallerin’, in luck. Was there ever sech luck in the world before? I don’t believe it. Hope to Harry I won’t wake up and find that I’m jes’ dreamin’; that I ain’t here, and there ain’t been no holdup; and that there ain’t any emeralds at all! Oh, gosh all fiddlesticks, wouldn’t that make me sweat! Surely I can’t be dreamin’! Lemme take another look at ’em, to be certain.”
He took another look, and was sure that he was wide awake, and that the emeralds were really in his possession.
“Luck!” he cried. “Hoop-la! I’m rollin’ in the biggest luck I ever heard of.”
Then he rode on, jubilant and excited beyond words to express.