"Well, Colvin, you are from the Enchanted Valley?"
"You were one of the men engaged by Wiley, I presume?"
"Those men are plotting a heap to take the mines, sir. Hodge discovered it."
"That I don't know. He discovers it, somehow, and he sends me with this yere message. He picks me out and asks me could he trust me a whole lot. I tells him he could, and he chances it. I plans with him to git out in the night, and I does so."
"Yes. One of the crew sees me a-talking with Mr. Hodge, and they suspects me. Arter that they watches me mighty close. That makes it plenty hard for me to git away. I don't opine I am much more than out of the valley afore they finds out I am gone. I didn't think they'd git on so quick, and so I fails to push as hard as I might at first. Shortly after sun-up I sees two horsemen coming miles behind me. Even then I'm not dead sure they're arter me. But they was, sir--they was. I had a hard run for it, but I have made good by getting the message to you."
"And you shan't lose by it, Colvin. Be sure of that. Did you know about this plot to seize the mines--before Hodge discovered it?"
"I knows there was something up, sir; but the rest of the gang they don't trust me complete, and so I don't find out just what was a-doing. I sees them whispering and acting queer, and I thinks there's trouble brewing before Hodge speaks to me about it."
"A right tough lot, Mr. Merriwell. They has liquor, too. Somehow it's brought to them, but the head one of the bunch, Texas Bland, he don't ladle it out free at once. He seems to keep it for some occasion later."
"How many men do you think there are in this plot?"
But he was not prepared with an organized force to meet the plotting ruffians, and he felt that it would require precious time in order to get together a band of fighting men.
"Whatever do you propose to do, Mr. Merriwell?" asked Colvin.
"I see it is necessary for me to lose no time in reaching the mines."
"But you don't go alone, I judge? You takes some good men with you?"
"Better do it, sir. That gang is a heap tough, and it takes twice as many men to down 'em."
"Not twice as many of the right sort. I have two or three comrades I can depend upon."
"But two or three are no good, Mr. Merriwell; you hears me."