“That’s your solemn promise?”
“Yes. Now, where aire they?”
Toby Sam still held his revolver cocked.
“Those emeralds are in the possession of Miss Forest. I can tell you that now, for she is on the stage, and the stage has got such a start of you that you couldn’t overtake it, no matter how hard you might try. She has got them; and they’re safe.”
A roar of surprise and anger arose.
“But, see here,” said Toby Sam argumentatively, “I was under her house when she and Buffler Bill war talkin’ of how they war goin’ to send them emeralds on; and I heard her say that she would give ’em to you to carry, ’cause then they’d be safer, fer no one would be expectin’ you to have ’em. What about that? Ain’t that right?”
“I don’t doubt you were sneak enough to crawl under the house and listen in that way, since you admit it.”
“But ain’t that right? Didn’t she say that?”
“I think she did; but she is a woman, and a woman has an everlasting right to change her mind whenever she wants to. She changed her mind.”
“And she carried ’em, instead of you?”