“He’s all grit, haint he?” whispered Sanders, who, as well as his companion, seemed surprised at the captive’s coolness and indifference. “He’s a genuine Mortimer.”
“Mebbe he’ll look different afore he has been many hours inside these yere walls,” replied Tom, in the same cautious whisper. “Wait till he gets into the house an’ sees him, as I saw him one night.”
“Well, if you’re going in you had better dismount, hadn’t you? Or do you intend to ride your horses in? Who’s this you have here?”
It was Pedro who spoke. He had lingered to fasten the gate, and now came up and elevated his lantern to take a survey of the trappers and their prisoner. When the rays from the bull’s-eye fell upon Julian’s features he staggered back as if he had been shot, his face grew deadly pale, and his whole frame trembled violently.
“It isn’t – it isn’t – ”
Pedro tried to pronounce some name, but it seemed to stick in his throat.
“No, it isn’t him,” replied Sanders; “it’s the other.”
“Not Julian?” exclaimed the Mexican, plainly much relieved.
“Yes, Julian, an’ nobody else.”
“Why, how came he here? Where did you find him?”
“Now, Pedro, you haven’t offered us $5,000 to bring him to you safe an’ sound, have you? Them’s questions we don’t answer for nobody except the ole man. We want to see him, an’ purty quick, too.”
Sanders dismounted from his horse, and at a sign from him Tom and Julian did the same. Pedro led the way toward the door of the rancho, shaking his head and ejaculating in both Spanish and English, and turning around now and then to look sharply at Julian as if he had not yet been able to make up his mind whether he was a solid flesh and blood boy or only a spirit. He conducted the trappers and their captive into the house, and after pausing to fasten the door, led them through a long, wide hall, the walls of which were hung with old-fashioned pictures and implements of the chase, and ushered them into an elegantly furnished room; and after taking one more good look at Julian, waved his hand toward a couple of chairs and asked the trappers to be seated.
“I will go and tell the governor who you are, and whom you have brought with you,” said he.
“Hold your horses!” exclaimed Sanders, suddenly, and in great excitement. “You haint a-goin’ to take that light with you an’ leave us here in the dark? I wouldn’t stay here fur all the money the ole man’s got stowed away in that cave of his’n, if it’s $50,000.”
“Fifty thousand!” sneered Pedro. “You have queer ideas of wealth. Better say fifty million; and he don’t know where it is any more than you do. He’ll find out now, however,” added the Mexican, with a hasty glance at Julian.
“Wal, put that lantern on the table if you’re goin’ out,” repeated Sanders.
Pedro muttered something about having any thing but an exalted opinion of a man, who, after braving innumerable dangers, was afraid to remain in a dark room for a moment or two, but he complied with the request. He placed the lantern on the table and went out, leaving the trappers and Julian to themselves. The latter sunk helplessly into the nearest chair, while Sanders and his companion, after looking all about the room to make sure that there was no fourth person present, moved up closer together and stood regarding one another with an expression of great amazement on their faces.
“Fifty million!” whispered Sanders, who was the first to speak. “Do you believe it?”
“That’s a monstrous heap of money,” replied Tom – “more’n the hul State of Californy is worth. But I’ve allers heern tell that old Reginald had more yaller boys stowed away in this rancho than a wagon train could haul away. If it’s a fact, we’ve made a mistake by – ”
He finished the sentence by jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward Julian.
“Sartin, we have,” replied Sanders. “We hadn’t oughter give him up for no $5,000. Pedro told us that the ole man don’t know whar the money is any more’n we do, but that he would find out all about it now; and when he said that he looked at Julian. Did you notice?”
Tom replied in the affirmative.
“That means that the money is hid somewhars; but it can’t be that the boy knows whar it is, ’cause he was so young when he was took away from here. Thar’s a heap o’ things about this house an’ family that I would like to have made clear to me. But I know one thing, an’ that is, we can make up on the other feller what we lose on Julian; an’ besides, we can watch our chance an’ steal the boy out agin when – what’s that? Did you hear anything, youngster?”
Sanders’ voice trembled as he asked this question, and facing suddenly about he gazed first toward the farther end of the room, and then toward Julian, who had started to his feet, and stood looking the very picture of bewilderment.
“I did,” replied the boy, in a scarcely audible whisper; “and I saw something moving those curtains, too.”
The walls of the room into which Julian and his captors had been conducted, instead of being plastered or papered, were concealed by crimson hangings which extended from the ceiling to the floor. These were the curtains of which he had spoken.
As he sat listening in a dreamy sort of way to the whispered conversation of the trappers, he heard a grating noise on the other side of the hangings resembling that which would be occasioned by a key turning in a rusty lock.
A bright, dazzling light blazed up for an instant and was extinguished, and then the hangings were pushed aside and a pair of eyes appeared at the opening and looked into the room.
Julian saw a portion of the face to which they belonged and sprang to his feet in great astonishment, for he thought he recognized the features of the emigrant whose conversation with Sanders he had overheard. But the face was withdrawn almost as soon as it appeared, and Julian was not allowed a second look.
“What did you see?” cried Sanders, his face ghastly pale, and the hand which rested on the lock of his rifle trembling visibly.
“I saw some one looking in here,” replied Julian, “and it was the same man who offered you a thousand dollars to put me out of the way.”
“Dick Mortimer!” Sanders almost shrieked.
The expression of terror on his face gave way instantly to a look of profound astonishment. He dropped the butt of his rifle heavily to the floor, and Tom uttered a long-drawn whistle.
The two men stared vacantly at one another for a moment, and then with a common impulse sprang across the room and tore aside the hangings.
There was no one there. Nothing was revealed except the solid stone wall which formed that side of the room. Where could the emigrant have gone? He certainly had not come into the room, and neither could he have retreated through the wall. Julian stood transfixed.
“I know I saw him there,” said he, as soon as he could speak. “It beats me where he could have gone so suddenly.”
“That’s nothing,” replied Sanders. “You’ll be beat wuss than this if you stay in this rancho all night, I can tell you that.”
But the trapper’s actions indicated that it was something, after all, for as soon as he had satisfied himself that the emigrant had disappeared, he dropped the hangings as if they had been coals of fire, and snatching the lantern from the table retreated toward the door with all possible haste, with Tom close at his heels. Nor was Julian far behind the trappers when they reached the hall.
He