Captain Dornton laughed again, dropped into a chair, rubbed his hands on his knees, and turned his face toward Randolph.  “Yes; I stole it—­or had it stolen—­the same thing, for I’m responsible.”

“But I would have given it up to you at once,” said Randolph reproachfully, clinging to the only idea he could understand in his utter bewilderment.  “I have religiously and faithfully kept it for you, with all its contents, ever since—­you disappeared.”

“I know it, lad,” said Captain Dornton, rising, and extending a brown, weather-beaten hand which closed heartily on the young man’s; “no need to say that.  And you’ve kept it even better than you know.  Look here!”

He lifted the portmanteau to his lap and disclosed behind the usual small pouch or pocket in the lid a slit in the lining.  “Between the lining and the outer leather,” he went on grimly, “I had two or three bank notes that came to about a thousand dollars, and some papers, lad, that, reckoning by and large, might be worth to me a million.  When I got that portmanteau back they were all there, gummed in, just as I had left them.  I didn’t show up and come for them myself, for I was lying low at the time, and—­no offense, lad—­I didn’t know how you stood with a party who was no particular friend of mine.  An old shipmate whom I set to watch that party quite accidentally run across your bows in the ferry boat, and heard enough to make him follow in your wake here, where he got the portmanteau.  It’s all right,” he said, with a laugh, waving aside with his brown hand Randolph’s protesting gesture.  “The old bag’s only got back to its rightful owner.  It mayn’t have been got in shipshape ’Frisco style, but when a man’s life is at stake, at least, when it’s a question of his being considered dead or alive, he’s got to take things as he finds ’em, and I found ’em d—–­ bad.”

In a flash of recollection Randolph remembered the obtruding miner on the ferry boat, the same figure on the wharf corner, and the advantage taken of his absence with Miss Avondale.  And Miss Avondale was the “party” this man’s shipmate was watching!  He felt his face crimsoning, yet he dared not question him further, nor yet defend her.  Captain Dornton noticed it, and with a friendly tact, which Randolph had not expected of him, rising again, laid his hand gently on the young man’s shoulder.

“Look here, lad,” he said, with his pleasant smile; “don’t you worry your head about the ways or doings of the Dornton family, or any of their friends.  They’re a queer lot—­including your humble servant.  You’ve done the square thing accordin’ to your lights.  You’ve ridden straight from start to finish, with no jockeying, and I shan’t forget it.  There are only two men who haven’t failed me when I trusted them.  One was you when I gave you my portmanteau; the other was Jack Redhill when he stole it from you.”

He dropped back in his chair again, and laughed silently.