"I believe you told the chief that you were rich, and this poor fellow is your messenger."
"I think I understand."
"Yes, you will be returned, and then negotiations will be entered into for your messenger's ransom."
"Ah! I am to be still further robbed?" said Celeste, with a sneer.
"Yes, and that is not the end," came the significant reply.
There was something in the response of the outlaw officer that impressed the young girl most strangely. What more could there be in store for her than she had already passed through, which caused him to say that the end was not yet?
The listener among the rocks kept his eyes riveted upon the two, his ears turned to catch every word they uttered.
He now knew that the letter he had received, telling him, as Andrew Seldon, that Celeste, the daughter, was dead, was false, and a fraud perpetrated for some reason upon the absent miner.
"You say that the ransom of Bernard Brandon will not be the end?" asked Celeste, after a moment of meditation.
"It will not."