"Where is the Mexican?"
"Dead!" was the startling and unexpected reply.
"You quarreled, then?" asked Nestor.
"He fell over a cliff," was the reply. "I tried to save him,
but he drew me over with him. I broke my leg and he broke his neck.
Give me the flask!"
The request was complied with, and the fellow drank thirstily,
the strong liquor slipping down his throat like water. He passed
the flask back and closed his eyes. Then Big Bob, who had evidently
been listening to the conversation, beckoned to Fremont. Wondering
what the fellow could have to say to him, the boy approached the
side of the dying man.
"You recall my asking bout your first meeting with Cameron?" Big Bob asked.
"Yes, and I wondered at it."
"There was a photograph in the Tolford envelope. Have you ever seen it?"
Fremont shook his head, wondering if the man was going out of his mind.
He had often handled the papers, and had never come upon a photograph.
"There was one there," the other insisted. "When you get back to New York
look it up. It will pay you to do so."
"Very well," replied the mystified boy, "but why talk of that at such a time?"
Big Bob regarded the boy questioningly, as if doubting his word.
"When the man of the photograph," he said, weakly, "was of your age, he
must have looked exactly as you look now. It is no wonder that Cameron
recognized in the newsboy the heir to the Tolford estate."
Fremont looked from Big Bob back to Nestor, then swept his eyes around
the circle of interested faces.
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