Thorpe rolled to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed, and smiled uncertainly. Then as the sleep drained from his brain, he reached out his hand.
“You bet we did 'em, Wallace,” said he, “but it looked like a hard proposition for a while.”
“How was it? Tell me about it!” insisted the boy eagerly. “You don't know how impatient I've been. The clerk at the Land Office merely told me it was all right. How did you fix it?”
While Thorpe washed and shaved and leisurely freshened himself, he detailed his experiences of the last week.
“And,” he concluded gravely, “there's only one man I know or ever heard of to whom I would have considered it worth while even to think of sending that telegram, and you are he. Somehow I knew you'd come to the scratch.”
“It's the most exciting thing I ever heard of,” sighed Wallace drawing a full breath, “and I wasn't in it! It's the sort of thing I long for. If I'd only waited another two weeks before coming down!”
“In that case we couldn't have gotten hold of the money, remember,” smiled Thorpe.
“That's so.” Wallace brightened. “I did count, didn't I?”
“I thought so about ten o'clock this morning,” Thorpe replied.
“Suppose you hadn't stumbled on their camp; suppose Injin Charley hadn't seen them go up-river; suppose you hadn't struck that little mill town JUST at the time you did!” marvelled Wallace.