eyes. "Then ye don't know Snapshot Harry. Do ye suppose he's goin' to
sit down and twiddle his thumbs with that skin game played on him? No,
sir," he continued, with a thoughtful deliberation, drawing his fingers
slowly through his long beard, "he spotted it--and smelt out the whole
trick ez soon ez he opened that box, and that's why he didn't foller us!
He'll hunt those sneak thieves into h-ll but what he'll get 'em, and,"
he went on still more slowly, "by the livin' hokey! I reckon, sonny,
that's jest how ye'll get your chance to chip in!"

"I don't understand," said Brice impatiently.

"Well," said Bill, with more provoking slowness, as if he were communing
with himself rather than Brice, "Harry's mighty proud and high toned,
and to be given away like this has cut down into his heart, you bet. It
ain't the money he's thinkin' of; it's this split in the gang--the loss
of his power ez boss, ye see--and ef he could get hold o' them chaps
he'd let the money slide ez long ez they didn't get it. So you've got a
detective on your side that's worth the whole police force of Californy!
Ye never heard anything about Snapshot Harry, did ye?" asked Bill
carelessly, raising his eyes to Brice's eager face.

The young man flushed slightly. "Very little," he said. At the same time
a vision of the pretty girl in the settler's cabin flashed upon him with
a new significance.

"He's more than half white, in some ways," said Bill thoughtfully, "and
they say he lives somewhere about here in a cabin in the bush, with a
crippled sister and her darter, who both swear by him. It mightn't be
hard to find him--ef a man was dead set on it."