“No,” said Tom. “I wish we knew who fired the shot that——”
“I guess we never will know,” she said. “But this is what is important now. Father gave me some folded papers out of his pocket and said I must keep them until—he came back. But the fighting got worse and I was frightened. People began falling down in the open place and I was awfully scared.”
“It must have been terrible,” Cliff said, sympathetically.
“I saw a man coming across the open place and it was Mort Beecher, only I didn’t recognize him at first.”
“Yes,” Tom said, “he rescued you, Henry told us.”
“But Henry said you ran out while he held the horse, and Mort saved you,” Cliff said.
“That wasn’t so, at all,” she declared. “I did not run out! I was obeying father. But when I saw that man coming I thought I’d hide the papers, because father had said they were partnership agreements and a deed. So I—put them—under a board—it was loose—right under where the old stove stood.” The youths nodded.
“Then Mort Beecher came in and said he would save me, and he picked me up and carried me out to a mule.”
“I’ve thought, all along, that Mort was the real bandit,” Nicky said. “What you say all checks up. He sold part of the mine and then, when he found out there was gold dust to be taken he wanted to get the agreements back and have the money too!”
“But if he was the real bandit leader, why did he rescue me?”