"I puts it this way, Bill: that the telegram traveled faster than old Red could, so no need to hide till tonight, though when you deals with Red, it behooves you to have your gun ready against chances. You want to know about Red Kimball? But I think I'd best wait till Lahoma's letter comes, so my story can tally with hers. I got my reasons for not wanting to tell all about Red Kimball which I reckon he wouldn't be grateful for, but that's for him to say. So I 'lows to tell only as much as I has to tell, that depending on what Lahoma has picked up, according." "I suppose you've met him face to face?" growled Bill. "They don't seem to be no harm in that question, Bill, but you never knows where a first question is leading you. If I refuses to answer what seems fair and square, no suspicions is roused when I refuses to answer what might sound dark and shady. So I banks myself against my general resolution to say nothing beyond Lahoma's word." "Her word says he can prove everything. What is 'everything'?" "That's what we'll learn from her letter. We'll just watch him do his proving!" "And her word says to hide this minute." "I don't do my hiding in daylight, but when it's good and dark, I'm going to put out. I would tell you the hiding-place, for I trusts you both--but if you knowed where it was, and if officers of the law come to you for information, you'd be in a box; I know you wouldn't give me up, but neither would you swear to a lie. Not knowing where I hides, your consciences are as free as mine that hasn't never been bridled." Wilfred asked, "But when Lahoma writes, how will you get her letter?" "You or Bill will go for the mail. If a letter comes, you'll take it to that crevice into which Miss Sellimer was drug by that big Injun, and you'll wait in there till I comes, not opening that letter till I am with you. We'll read it together, down in the hollow where poor Miss Sellimer's life was saved by Lahoma; then you two will go back to the cove, and leave me to sneak away to my hiding-place which may be near and may be far. When you get a letter, bring your ladder and the lantern, and be sure nobody is watching you--because if you let Red Kimball or any of his gang follow you to that hiding-place, you'd have to see a man killed--and such as that ain't no sight for eyes as civilized as Wilfred's, or as old as Bill's." CHAPTER XVI THE ONYX PIN When the next letter came from Lahoma, Wilfred Compton and Bill Atkins hurried to the crevice in the mountain-top according to agreement. It was a cloudless afternoon, but at the farther end of the retreat the light of the lantern was necessary for its perusal. Brick Willock, who was there before them, read the letter in silence before handing it to the young man to read aloud.