LAYING PLANS.
While he and Chub were eating their breakfast Matt questioned Mrs. Spooner more at length regarding the Mexican who had brought the letter. But he was not able to find out anything more than he already knew. Mrs. Spooner had about as much use for a Mexican as she had for an Indian, and that was no use at all. Consequently she had paid but little attention to the messenger who had delivered the letter, and had been very glad to get rid of him so quickly.
Mrs. Spooner was a good woman, but very inquisitive. From the questions Matt put about the letter she knew it must be of considerable importance, and she tried hard to find out something about its contents. In order to get away, Matt ate less breakfast than usual, and hustled Chub up to his room. There he passed the letter over for Chub's inspection.
"I guess," remarked Chub, after studying the scrawl, "that you can translate that to mean 'Come to Prescott on Thursday. Be at the Briggs House, and wait for something to happen.' Is that what you make of it, Matt?"
"Yes."
"A fair shake, do you think, or is somebody trying to string you?"
"I can't imagine who'd want to string me, Chub. It may have something to do with Clip. And to-morrow's Thursday."
"I can get next to that, all right. It won't do any harm to follow up the tip and see what it amounts to. Suppose I get that one-cylinder machine of Clip's and we make the trip to Prescott on our motor-cycles?"
"Bully! But we can't get away much before this evening, Chub. When the bank opens I want to get some money and hire a lawyer for Clip; then I'd like to ride out to the hills and look over the scene of the robbery. After that we could hike for Prescott. Do you know the road?"
"I could go over it with my eyes shut."