“Didn’t he ask you about the papers?” Tom questioned.
She nodded.
“But not for a long time. After all the excitement was over. Then I said I didn’t have any papers and he was disappointed.”
“How did he get you away—Henry said he defended the pass while you were taken off, and that it was only ten minutes—but the gold was gone and so were you and Mort.”
“Up the trail we stopped. Mort unloaded the sacks and dropped them over the edge. I thought it must be awfully deep, but when he hit the burros and sent them flying up the trail he got down over the edge of the cliff and told me to jump into his arms.”
“And you did?” gasped Nicky.
“Yes. It was only down about six feet. Then he made me bend low and I saw the edge hung over a sort of shallow place under it. So we hid there while the bandits went past. After a long time he crawled up on the trail and pulled me up, and made me give him a sack of the gold dust first. Then we climbed an awful trail, up the side of the hill, and hid in a cave. After that night he went away and left me; I thought he wouldn’t come back, but he did—with food. Then we went on to where he had a mule—he must have caught it on the pass. We rode for ever so long, and finally we came to where a hut was. Old people lived there. He said we were lost and begged for food and they gave us some. After that we rode on again and he was always afraid the bandits would find us, and our mule got worn out and we had to leave him and walk. Then we got to where some more people lived and he bribed them with some gold dust and they gave him a mule and then we rode from there. Finally we came to a city; he disguised the sack with some old oilskins he found, and I think he sold the gold dust gradually to some banks, for we stayed there—it was a long time, I don’t remember how long.”
“The bandits must have traced him,” Nicky suggested. “For Henry said—no, it was Jack—we found Jack in Porto Bello, but never mind—he said Mort had told him, while they drank—they did that a lot——”
“You’re worse mixed up than a shaker full of soda water!” laughed Tom. “What he’s trying to say is that in tracing you we found a man who told us part of Mort’s story as Mort told it to him. It was that bandits followed Mort and he took you——”
“On a boat, and kept me in the cabin and disguised me and said I was his daughter——”