“Take care,” warned Mort. “It’s nearly falling to bits.”
“Only the outer wrappers,” Henry whispered, holding the papers close to the electric beam, already growing dim. “See—the inside papers are all right.”
“Well, hurry up and make sure what they are. We want the deed and we might as well take the others and tear ’em up where the pieces won’t get us in trouble. Hurry, though. The battery is going down on that flashlamp.”
“It’s the deed all right,” Mort took one paper and unfolded it partly. “I recall how this corner was tore off where it was signed, and I made a patch onto it—only with my name instead of—that other ’un.”
“And here is the partnership paper. I won’t tear it up yet—but what are these other things?”
“Maybe more of his deeds,” Mort said. “You know, the night you was chief of the bandits and I helped, you said we ought to find more deeds for mines because he was representin’ a company——”
“Well, if you hadn’t shot him!—” accused Henry.
“I shot him? You got rats! You done that!”
“Well, look at the papers and let’s go back to toting gold.”
Henry, with the flash bulb now merely a dim, yellowish filament, held a paper close to his eyes.