“Well, if you know anything at all, when you found out that we were hunting for facts, why didn’t you come out in the open and tell?” Tom said it angrily, for the suspense was torture to him.
“Hen Morgan uses his head, that’s why!” He blew a cloud of smoke, coughed a little, and resumed his confidential, husky whispering. “You come here lookin’ for news. That means money behind you. ’Cause why? ’Cause no three young lads comes all this way without money. Now, reasons I, they’ll pay for news.”
“Oh!” cried Tom, “I see. You know something and you want to bargain with us and sell your information for all you can get.”
“It’s what I’d expect,” Nicky cut in.
“Come on, then,” Cliff urged. “We’ll pay you all your information turns out to be worth. But we’ll go back and talk it over with my father, out in the open, not up here in the trail.”
“Easy, easy!” begged Henry Morgan. “We won’t go back, right yet. ’Cause why? ’Cause we’ll make our bargain here.”
Nicky impulsively caught his pony’s saddle horn, started to lift a foot for the stirrup.
“Come on, fellows,” he urged. “We’ll go back and get help.”
Henry Morgan stood up. “The minute you rides down the trail, I rides off—up that way.” He waved his arm. “They didn’t ever find the head bandit, that time, did they? Nor the gold? ’Cause why? ’Cause there’s a way they got took to safety, and I know that way! If you don’t want my news, and won’t strike a bargain, well and good. But if you do——” he paused.
Tom was scratching his left ear quietly with his finger, and with one accord Nicky and Cliff folded their arms and the Mystery Boys’ council was in session without an outward evidence that anyone could notice or read.