“Mr. Bingham,” said the scout, “I beg your pardon. The Forty Thieves, from this showing made by my friend, Mr. Hickok, looks like a good purchase. But Lawless doesn’t know anything about that pay-streak. In negotiating for the mine, if I were you I wouldn’t say anything about it.”
“When he goes out to find Lawless and close up the deal,” said Wild Bill, “Mr. Bingham, I’m afraid, will have to do a good deal of hunting. In his efforts to beat somebody, Lawless has salted a bonanza onto Mr. Bingham and his Chicago syndicate. All I ask, Mr. Bingham, for this friendly tip I have given you, is that you communicate with me as soon as you find Captain Lawless, of the Forty Thieves.”
“I shall be glad to do so,” returned Mr. Bingham.
During the rest of that meal the scout and his pards discussed their adventures, pro and con, all more or less for the benefit of Dell and Little Cayuse.
Mr. Bingham, sitting by, heard everything. He learned, as the story fell graphically from Wild Bill’s lips, how the Laramie man had been knocked down, tied hand and foot, carried to the Forty Thieves, placed in the end of the crosscut, and then walled into a living tomb by a neatly placed blast.
Mr. Bingham also heard of the adventures that had befallen old Nomad, and of the manner in which he had been bowled over, carried to the mine, and subsequently released by the scout.
The talk ended in a description of the battle that had taken place in the cañon, when there was so much shooting and no casualties—plenty of noise and excitement, but no one “gouged er skelped,” as Nomad put it.
For some time Mr. Bingham had been growing even more pale than usual. Long before the scout and his pards were done with their talk, the Chicago man had excused himself, and tottered feebly from the room.
Next morning, when the scout and his friends met at the breakfast-table, there were two less at the board than at supper the evening before.
Mr. Bingham especially was noticeable by his absence. Spangler explained that he had said he wouldn’t buy a mine in such a country if some one would offer him a second Comstock lode for the price of a square meal. Not daring to remain longer in such a lawless region, Mr. Bingham had hired Spangler’s Mexican to take him to Montegordo in Spangler’s buckboard during the night.