“On Tuesday night next, about six o’clock, meet me at Buck Ashley’s old store. I shall want you to ride over to Bakersfield with me next morning, where my acquittal is assured. Give Merle the glad news. Yours, Dick.”
“Guess that’s all right?” he added, as he folded the note and placed it in an envelope on which he had already inscribed the name of Lieutenant Munson.
Pierre had signified his approval with a nod, and now he carefully bestowed the letter in the pocket of his shirt.
“He will get ze letter—he will surely be zere.”
“Then you say I cannot write to Merle—Miss Farnsworth, I mean?”
“I have ze strictest orders,” replied Pierre. “Nozing must be told just yet. Bah! It is only two days more.”
“Two mighty long days for me, old sport,” said Dick, half in jest and half in sober earnest, as he sat down and began cutting at a plug of tobacco.
Most of next day Willoughby was alone. But at the regular dinner hour Pierre appeared, and announced that he had safely packed the valise and the gold in four bags to the old store, and Jack Rover had been apprised of Dick’s coming on the following night.
“He knew what was in ze sacks,” laughed Pierre. “Zey were so very heavy, oh my! But I told him I would come back and shoot him like a jack-rabbit if he opened zem before you came.”
“Guess it needed an old bandit like you to scare Jack Rover,” replied Dick, jocularly. But he was very happy—everything was going along well—only another four-and-twenty hours now and his captivity would be at an end.