You see, my plan was to shake him just when I
found my bearings, and felt that I could go on alone; because, of
course I didn't want any outsider to be with me when I took possession
of my father's mine.

"I was careful never to breathe a word of what I had in mind; just
told him I wanted to knock around for a few weeks among the mountains
up here. And unless I talked in my sleep, which I never knew myself to
do, there wasn't any way Matt Griggs could learn from me the real
reason for my wanting to come to this particular section.

"But one night I woke up, and found the guide searching through my
knapsack; and then all of a sudden it struck me he was in the pay of
that old scoundrel of a Colonel Kracker. He meant to rob me of my
secret, and had thrown himself across my path on purpose, just about
the time it was supposed I'd be wanting to take on a guide.

"Of course I covered him with my gun, and sent him away without a
cartridge in his possession. He was ugly about it, too, and vowed he'd
get even with me yet. Well, he did, for my treacherous guide came in
with Kracker and a second man; so I reckon he must be one of those you
spoke of, perhaps Waffles; for I heard the other called Dickey, once
or twice."

"When they took you a prisoner, they searched you, of course, hoping
to find the valuable paper?" asked Giraffe, who could not wait for the
natural unfolding of the plot, but must needs hasten matters by means
of pointed questions.

"They raked me over with a fine-tooth comb," replied the other, with a
little chuckle, as though proud of what he had done; "but of course I
had been too smart to carry that paper where it could be found, and so
they had all their trouble for their pains. Then Kracker was as mad as
a wet hen. He stormed, and threatened, and tried to fool me with a
whole lot of silly promises; but it wasn't any use. I just told him
that even if I knew the secret of the hidden mine, I'd die before I
gave it up to him, or any one like him."

"Well, you saw what he did, in the end; took me up there, and lowered me
to that terrible ledge, saying he was going to leave me there to starve;
and that when the buzzards came flocking around me, and I was wild for a
bite to eat, perhaps I'd feel a little like telling him what he was
bound to know, for he promised to come and ask me every day."

"This was when?" asked Thad.

"I think it must have been about noon when they lowered me at the end of
a rope," Al