“He may. Nobody can tell. I’ll do my best for him. I never lose hope of a man, after what I’ve see’d in my experience, till the breath is fairly out of him.”
“Thank God for these words, Ben.”
“Yes,” continued the scout, “and your friend Brooke is at this moment sunk in the blue dumps because you have been carried off by a great mysterious monster!”
“Then he doesn’t know it was you?” exclaimed Leather.
“In course not. An’ he doesn’t know you are within five hundred yards of him. An’ what’s more, you mustn’t let him know it was me, for that must be kept a dead secret, else it’ll ruin my character on the frontiers. We must surround it wi’ mystery, my boy, till all is safe. But I didn’t come up here to enjoy an evenin’s conversation. You’re not safe where you are, Leather. They’ll be scourin’ all round for you long before sun-up, so I must putt you where you’ll be able to look on an’ grin at them.”
“Where will that be?” asked Leather, with some curiosity.
“You know the cliff about five hundred feet high that rises just over on the other side o’ the valley—where the water-shoot comes down?”
“Ay, it’s likely I do, for I’ve seen it every mornin’ for months past.”
“An’ you remember the hole near the top o’ the cliff?”
“Yes—that looks about the size of a crow?”