“May you sleep well.”
“Sweet dreams.”
She was gone. The room that had been assigned to Curlie was on the ground floor. The door opened on the broad porch. He was free to come and go as he chose. Because the night had been an exciting one and his blood was not yet cooled for sleep, he decided to take a turn about the village streets. In this way he chanced upon a man who was destined to play a large part in the near future, not alone of himself but of his friend Johnny Thompson as well.
The man was standing before a low door over which a feeble kerosene lamp burned. Curlie recognized him at once. True he had never seen him, but he fitted so well the description of the short, broad man who had played the good Samaritan to Johnny when he fell among the wild natives on the road to the Citadel that there could be no mistaking his identity.
Strangely enough the man recognized Curlie Carson.
“You are one of the young men from up at the Citadel,” he said without waiting to be spoken to. “You are looking for the ‘Rope of Gold’. What strange fancy tells you it is there? And where is your companion?”
“I should like to know that last myself,” said Curlie.
“I thought you might,” said the short, broad man, blinking his eyes in a strange way. “Well, I can tell you this much: he left some native friends, left them flat when they were bent on doing him a good turn, a very good turn. Left them flat I tell you. Walked right out on them.”
Curlie was astonished at the man’s talk. How, he wondered, could the man know so much about Johnny?
“You know a great deal,” he said. “Perhaps you can tell me where he is now.”