He missed the first greeting. It was only a jumble of exclamations, but now he heard: "But, Lou, what a wild idea. Across the mountains--with whom?"
"The man who brought you here."
"Who's he?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? He looks like a shifty little rat to me."
"He's big enough, Jack."
Such small praise was enough to set Donnegan's heart thumping.
"Besides, father told me to go with him, to trust him."
"Ah!" There was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis' voice. "The colonel knows him? He's one of the colonel's men?"
Plainly the colonel was to him as the rod to the child.
"Why didn't you come directly to me?"
"We thought it would be better not to."
"H'm-m. Your guide--well, what was the colonel's idea in sending you here? Heavens above, doesn't he know that a mining
