Much had been done in these days. A mystery had been cleared up and a fortune assured.
From Faye’s own lips Johnny had learned the secret of their hiding away in the north woods so many weeks before. Her grandfather was to have been a witness in a murder trial. He believed the man being tried was innocent, yet he realized that his own testimony would go far toward convicting him. In order to avoid being called as a witness and in order to give time for hot anger to cool and the real culprit to be found, he had hidden away in the forest.
“But now it is all more than right,” Faye had said with tears of joy in her eyes. “The real murderer has confessed; the other man is free.”
Gordon Duncan had sold half the green gold for a sum large enough to make him comfortable for life. Timmie’s half he had given to a museum, there to remain as a monument to his lost comrade.
Faye and Johnny stood in the doorway watching the sunset fade. Never before had Johnny been so tempted to give up the life of a wanderer and settle down. And yet—
“Letter for you,” said Gordon Duncan. Coming up the path, he handed it to Johnny.
The boy read the letter with interest. It was from Curlie Carson. Perhaps you have read about him. Johnny had heard of him. In this letter Curlie proposed that the two of them join in a daring enterprise. Would Johnny go?
Would he? When one frank, daring, straight shooting adventurer says to another of his kind, “Come, let’s go,” the answer is sure to be, “Lead on.”
“But I’ll be back,” Johnny said to the ruddy-cheeked Scotch girl as he bade her goodbye next morning. And who can say he will not?
If you wish to read of the adventures entered into by Johnny Thompson and Curlie Carson, you’ll find them all written down in a book called, “The Rope of Gold.”