“It is Yetmore’s belief that the reason John wouldn’t let him into his house—it’s only a one-roomed shanty, you know—was that Clubfoot was then inside; and he further believes that John, finding himself deprived of his expected summer’s work, and no doubt incensed besides at Yetmore’s going back on him, as he would consider it, then and there planned with Clubfoot the robbery of the ore; both of them being familiar with the workings of the Pelican.”
“That sounds reasonable,”remarked Peter; “though, when all is said and done, it amounts to no more than a guess on Yetmore’s part. But, look here!”he went on, as the thought suddenly occurred to him. “If Long John is not prospecting for Yetmore or himself either, being supposedly in hiding, what was he doing on the ‘bubble’ yesterday?”
“But perhaps he is prospecting for himself,”Tom Connor broke in. “Here we are, theorizing away like a house afire on the idea that he is the thief, when maybe he had nothing to do with it. And if he is prospecting for himself, the sooner I get up to that claim the better if I don’t want to be interfered with. I reckon I’ll dig out right away. If you boys,”turning to us, “can spare the time and the buckboard you can help me a good bit by carrying up my things for me.”
“All right, Tom,”said I. “We can do so.”
Starting at once, therefore, with a load of provisions, tools and bedding, we carried them up the mountain as far as we could on wheels, and then packed them the rest of the way on horseback, when, having seen Tom comfortably established in camp near the Big Reuben—with the look of which he expressed himself as immensely pleased—Joe and I turned homeward again about four in the afternoon.
We were driving along, skirting the rim of our cañon, and were passing between the stream and the little treeless “bubble”upon which Joe had, as he believed, seen Long John standing the day before, when my companion remarked:
“I should very much like to know, Phil, what Long John was doing up there. Do you suppose——Whoa! Whoa, there, Josephus! What’s the matter with you?”
This exclamation was addressed to the horse; for at this moment the ordinarily well-behaved Josephus shied, snorted, and standing up on his hind feet struck out with his fore hoofs at a big timber-wolf, which, springing out from the shelter of some boulders on the margin of the cañon and passing almost under his nose, ran off and disappeared among the rocks.
“He must have been down to the stream to get a drink,”suggested Joe.