“What is your theory about the gold?”
“I think they know where it is, all right. They have it hidden away safely but they don’t dare remove it. They’ll wait until the affair dies down and then they’ll probably separate and leave this district, meeting somewhere else to divide the loot.”
“Our problem is—”
“To find that gold.” Fenton Hardy looked steadily at his sons as he said this. “I have a lot of confidence in you,” he went on. “It just requires a lot of hard work and keeping your eyes open. Mainly, it will keep the gang on the jump. They’ll know we haven’t given up the case and they’ll be afraid to do anything. And now,” he said, “you might tell me how you happen to have heard the names of Bart Dawson and Black Pepper before.”
Frank and Joe then told their father of their meeting with Jadbury Wilson, the old miner who said he had once lived in Lucky Bottom. They deemed it best not to mention the fact that Jadbury Wilson suspected Bart Dawson of stealing from him. If Bart Dawson were back in Lucky Bottom they felt safer in reserving this bit of information. They merely told their father that Wilson had mentioned the names of Dawson and Black Pepper, among others, as having lived in Lucky Bottom at the time he had been a miner there.
“What kind of chap is Dawson?” asked Frank.
“One of the finest!” declared their father promptly. “He is a real square-shooter, as the miners would say. The loss of the gold has broken him all up. He told me he had had hard luck all his life and now that he had a fortune within his grasp it was heartbreaking to lose it again.”
Frank could not help thinking that life had evidently paid back Bart Dawson in his own coin. He had stolen a fortune from Jadbury Wilson after Wilson had endured hard luck for years. Now he was getting a taste of his own medicine. Still, it seemed strange that Fenton Hardy should be so convinced of Dawson’s honesty if he were the type of man who would rob his own partners.
“Come and get it!” piped Hank Shale, from the next room.
“That’s the supper call,” laughed Mr. Hardy. “You must be hungry after your journey. Better go and eat. Hank will bring me mine in here.”
Nothing loath, the two boys went into the combination living room and kitchen, where Hank Shale was already dishing out piping hot beans and stew from an enormous pot. What with huge slabs of bread, thickly buttered, and excellent coffee, the boys sat down to their supper with a will. They ate off tin plates and drank from tin cups, but they agreed that no meal could have tasted better. Even the food of the dining car on the train, exquisitely cooked and served though it had been, seemed somehow to lack the flavor of this meal in Hank Shale’s mountain cabin.
Hank, like most men who have lived a solitary existence, was a silent man. He said nothing throughout the meal, but as he watched the boys eat and as he responded to their request for second helpings, a slow smile crept over his wrinkled face.
“That’s the best meal I ever ate!” declared Frank emphatically, when he had cleared his plate for the second time.
“Me too,” agreed Joe.
“Glad ye like it,” said Hank Shale, deeply pleased.
XII
The Cave-in
Next day, refreshed by their night’s sleep, the Hardy boys set out on a systematic search for the hidden gold.
“There won’t be much real detective work about this case,” their father told them. “It will be just a plain case of plugging along and searching high and low for that gold. It is hidden somewhere, or the gang wouldn’t be staying around. Hunt in all the abandoned mine diggings, in any place where it might possibly be hidden. You may follow that line or you may try to find where the outlaws are camping and possibly pick up some clues there.”
With this to go on, Frank and Joe Hardy left the cabin in the morning. They decided to explore some of the abandoned diggings first.
“It’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack,” said Frank; “but we might have a bit of luck and stumble on the gold.”
They did not go down into the town because they knew that their presence in the camp would cause considerable talk and, although they had little doubt but that news of their arrival had reached the outlaws by now, they preferred to remain under cover as much as possible.
Hank Shale had suggested searching the workings of an old mine just over the brow of the hill, and toward this place they went. There was a faint trail through the rocks, although it had long since been snowed over, but the boys managed to find the workings without difficulty. They felt the exhilaration of the clear, cold air and the excitement of at last being at work on the mystery of the hidden gold.
The abandoned mine did not look very much like a mine. It was just a large pocket in the earth, with a shaft that sank down into the darkness. The shaft was but a few yards across and a rickety ladder led down into the hard rock.
“We may as well try this one for a start,” suggested Frank. “We can easily tell if anyone has been around recently.”
They had brought electric flashlights with them, and without further ado Frank began to descend the ladder. Joe followed. Their descent into the abandoned mine was precarious, as at various places the rungs of the ladder were broken, but after descending about forty feet they came to the first and only level. The mine had evidently been a failure.
In the light of the flashlights
