Then he stared and his hand shook. His eye had fallen upon the stamp of the seal in the corner of the envelope. He knew that secret mark all too well; had learned it from Wo Cheng. It was the stamp of the biggest and worst society of Radicals in all the world.
"So!" Johnny whispered to himself. "So, Mr. Russian, you are a Radical, a red, a Nihilist, a communist, an anything-but-society-as-it-is guy. You want the world to cough up its dough and own nothing, and yet here you are carrying round the price of a farm in your vest pocket." He chuckled. "Some reformer, I'd say!"
But his next thought sobered him. What was he to do with all that wealth? One of those stones would make Mazie happy for a lifetime. But it wasn't his. He had no right to it. He could not do a thing he'd be ashamed to tell Mazie and his old boss about.
But, if they didn't belong to him, perhaps the diamonds didn't belong to the Russian either. At any rate, the latter's disloyalty to his nation had forfeited his right to own property.
Even should this Russian be the rightful owner, Johnny could not very well hunt him up and say: "Here, mister. You tried to kill me yesterday. Here are your diamonds. I found them in the mine. Please count them and see if they are all there."
Johnny grinned as he thought of that. There seemed to be nothing to do but keep the stones, for the time being at least.
"Anyway," he said to himself as he rolled up in his deer skins. "I'll bet I have discovered something. I'll bet he's one of the big ones, perhaps the biggest of them all. And he's trying to make his way across to America to stir things up over there."