“How can you get the best of Vane, Gaff?” asked Malone, after a pause.
“There is but one way, Malone.”
“And that is?”
“Can I trust you?”
“Haven’t you trusted me before?”
“We must–” Caven paused. “We won’t talk about it in this public place. Come to my room and I’ll lay my plan before you.”
Then the two arose and left the reading-room as rapidly as they had entered it.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW A SATCHEL DISAPPEARED.
“THEY certainly mean mischief,” Joe told himself, after the two men had vanished. He saw them enter an elevator, but did not know at what floor they alighted.
Looking over the hotel register he was unable to find the names of either Caven or Malone, or even Ball. Evidently the rascals were traveling under other names now.
“They’ll bear watching,” he concluded. “I must put Mr. Vane on guard as soon as he comes in.”
He gave up the idea of leaving a note and took his station in the corridor of the hotel. After waiting about two hours he saw a well-known form approaching, dress-suit case in hand.
“Mr. Vane!”
“Oh, Joe, so you’re here already! I’m glad I won’t have to wait for you.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to get a room, Mr. Vane. But you can have mine.”
“I telegraphed ahead for a room, Joe.”
“Do you know that your enemies are here?” went on our hero.
“My enemies?”
“Gaff Caven and Pat Malone. But they are traveling under other names.”
“Have they seen you?”
“I think not, sir.”
Mr. Vane soon had his room assigned to him and he and our hero passed up in the elevator. As soon as they were in the apartment by themselves, Joe related what he had seen and heard.
“They are certainly on my trail,” mused Maurice Vane. “And they must have kept pretty close or they wouldn’t know that I had asked you to accompany me.”
“They have some plot, Mr. Vane.”
“Have you any idea what it is?”
“No, sir, excepting that they are going to try to do you out of your interest in that mine.”
Maurice Vane and Joe talked the matter over for an hour, but without satisfaction. Then they went to the dining room for something to eat.
“We start for Montana in the morning,” said the gentleman. “I think the quicker I get on the ground the better it will be for me.”
Although Maurice Vane and Joe did not know it, both were shadowed by Caven and Malone. The two rascals had disguised themselves by donning false beards and putting on spectacles.
“They leave in the morning,” said Caven. “Malone, we must get tickets for the same train, and, if possible, the same sleeping car.”
“It’s dangerous work,” grumbled Pat Malone.
“If you want to back out, say so, and I’ll go it alone.”
“I don’t want to back out. But we must be careful.”
“I’ll be careful, don’t fear,” answered the leader of the evil pair.
At the ticket office of the hotel, Maurice Vane procured the necessary tickets and sleeper accommodations to the town of Golden Pass, Idaho. He did not notice that he was watched. A moment later Gaff Caven stepped up to the desk.
“I want a couple of tickets to Golden Pass, too,” he said, carelessly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me see, what sleeper did that other gentleman take?”
“Number 2, sir–berths 7 and 8.”
“Then give me 9 and 10 or 5 and 6,” went on Caven.
“9 and 10–here you are, sir,” said the clerk, and made out the berth checks. Without delay Caven hurried away, followed by Malone.
“We’ll be in the sleeping compartment right next to that used by Vane and the boy,” chuckled Gaff Caven. “Pat, it ought to be dead easy.”
“Have you the chloroform?”
“Yes, twice as much as we’ll need.”
“When can we leave the train?”
“At three o’clock, at a town called Snapwood. We can get another train two hours later,–on the northern route.”
All unconscious of being watched so closely, Maurice Vane and Joe rode to the depot and boarded the train when it came along. Joe had been looking for Caven and Malone, but without success.