"All right, Bossie," replied the lad listlessly. "We can only work half time now until the mules come and I can go in and get the electric light."
"I will be glad when this job is over," he told Walter. "The violence, trouble, and bloodshed have destroyed all my interest in the work. The gunmen will bother us no more, but I am wondering already where the enemy will strike next. The gunmen were only tools."
"Cheer up," said his chum, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "The darkest hour is always just before the dawn."
ONE and all in the camp now began to look forward to the coming of Canady with the mules. The Spaniards because, until a new light was installed, they could only work half time and consequently could only earn half their usual wages. The rest of the party because they were getting really alarmed over the Missourian's long absence.
"He ought to have been back long before this," said Charley, the day after the tragic discovery of the dead gunmen. "If he does not show up by to-morrow morning, I am going to hire a pony from the Indians and start in and look for him. Something surely must have happened to him."
"If you do go in you are liable to miss him on the way," Walter objected. "He may come back by one route while you are going in by another. Better give him a little more time. Jim impressed me as being perfectly well able to look out for himself."
"You don't think he could have been tempted by the big amount of money he carried?" asked Captain Westfield, with some hesitation. "Five hundred dollars is a lot of money to a poor man."
"But not to Jim," Charley said decidedly. "Jim is a true Southerner and a thief is almost a curiosity among Southern races. No, Jim would not touch a cent that did not belong to him. Something has happened to him, that's all."
"Well, if you go in to-morrow, I am going with you," Walter said decidedly.
"We will talk that over later," Charley said. "We have nothing to do to-day so we might as well amuse ourselves and try to forget for a time that, if we are not actually ruined, we are pretty close to it."
"That's a good idea," his chum agreed heartily. "What shall the program be?"
"I would like to explore the country to the side of the road a bit, say out where you and McCarty went when you killed the deer. I have not been out that way yet."