Tom nodded. In the dimly lit room, bare except for a bed and a stove and a chair with one leg gone, he and Cliff and Nicky and his sister, with Bill and Jack, were as silent as statues. So that Henry Morgan strolling with his mind far away, got half-way through the door before he discovered them.
“What—say!—er—” he gasped. “Why——”
“Hello!” said Tom. “How’s Mort? And how are you?”
“Um—er—oh! Fine. Fine! ’Cause why? ’Cause we see you got this little lady safe away from the Indians. We knew you would. I said to Mort, ‘We’ve told the Indians to take good care of them till they want to leave and then take them safe to the shore.’ He said ‘Seems like deserting them, seems like,’ but we had to hurry, because—because——”
For once his ’Cause why was forgotten in his effort to hide his surprise. “——We had to keep an appointment with the captain of a sloop——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Tom, playing a part which Bill, Jack and the chums, and even Mr. Gray, had decided was the surest way to lull suspicion of what they really meant to accomplish.
“I knew you’d see it. ’Cause why? ’Cause you’re a fine feller. Tom, we fixed it all up with the Indians about letting Miss Margery go and then we come on back here. ’Cause why? Mort had remembered about his Golden Sun. It was a mine and he was anxious we should be partners.”
Tom felt that Henry had mixed himself up in enough half-falsehoods.
“Yes?” he said, with his eyelids lifted and brows arched, playing his part in laying a trap. “So that’s why, in the old days, Mort didn’t tell you where the gold dust went——”
Henry darted closer and eagerly demanded: