Bill seemed to know just how fast I could go to keep up with him, and in a few minutes I saw a light shining through between the trees, and presently I was ushered into his camp. There were three or four men lying around the fire, and they started up and looked at us.
“We have caught the wrong boy,” said Bill, waving his hand to show that I could put my saddle and bridle down where I pleased; “but he has got to show us the place where that money is hidden before he gets away. He hasn’t had anything to eat, and is hungry.”
I sat down and looked at the men, and, I tell you, some of them were pretty rough characters. I was glad indeed that I had fallen into the power of Bill’s best looking man, for if I had been captured by any one of the men sitting there at the fire, I should have fared badly. They expressed a sentiment of strong disgust when Bill spoke of having captured the wrong boy, but no attention was paid to it. He proceeded to fill a long pipe very carefully, after which he went off into the darkness, while another man set before me some bacon and corn bread. It was not enough to satisfy my appetite, but I was glad to get what there was, and in a short time it had all disappeared. Then I filled my pipe and settled back for a smoke.
“Where do you suppose Bill is gone?” I asked, addressing my enquiries to whoever had a mind to answer it.
Henderson was there, and in forming this question I looked particularly hard at him, not because I wished him to reply to it, but because I wished to see how he took matters. He was as mad as he was in camp when Mr. Chisholm found that he had got hold of the pocket-book containing the receipts, and not hold of the one that contained the will.
“He has gone off to get permission of the chief to burn you at sunrise,” said he spitefully.
“Sho!” said I, for I knew that Henderson had made this all up out of his own head. “Then he won’t get the money.”
“That’s the only thing that makes me think he won’t do it,” said Henderson. “But you will be gone up the next time you come here. How did you know that we were after the money, anyway?”
I repeated what I had said to Bill, and that was nothing but the truth.
“There were three white men in the party, and they said, from the way you went about it, they were satisfied that there were some renegades bossing the job,” answered I; and then I was almost sorry I said it. I did not know how they would take the name “renegades,” as applied to themselves; but Henderson was the only one who understood it.