Suddenly Frank said to his brother in a low voice:
“Don’t look around. Keep straight ahead.”
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s someone following us. I just caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. He’s hiding behind the rocks back there.”
“Let’s tackle him.”
“There may be others with him. Let him follow, and if he’s alone we’ll grab him.”
Without giving any indication that they had seen their pursuer, the Hardy boys cut down into a narrow ravine where huge masses of boulders made progress difficult. They came to a place where rocks rose on either side so close together that there was room for only one person to pass at a time. As soon as they had gone through the opening Frank leaped to one side, motioning to his brother to take the opposite side of the boulders. They were now completely hidden from the man who followed.
“We’ll get him when he comes through,” whispered Frank.
They waited expectantly.
At last they heard the crunch of snow that indicated the unsuspecting man was approaching. Cautiously he drew nearer, step by step. The boys prepared themselves.
The man drew nearer. He was just entering the passage between the boulders. Frank and Joe pressed themselves against the rocks. They saw a head appear in view, then the shoulders of the man. He stepped forward and, at the same moment, they sprang at him.
Frank launched himself full on the fellow’s shoulders and he gave a cry of surprise. At the same time Joe flung his arms about the man’s waist and all three came tumbling to the ground. There was a flurry of snow as they struggled, but the fight was short-lived. Taken completely by surprise, the man was quickly overcome. He had reached for a revolver at his waist, but Frank had seen it in the nick of time and had struck it from his grasp. He seized the weapon himself and pressed the barrel of it to the fellow’s temple.
“All right! All right!” he gasped. “I give in.”
There was something familiar about the voice. The man turned his head about and they saw that it was the man known as Slim, the thin-faced fellow who had been among their captors several days before.
XVI
Information
“So it’s you!” said Frank.
“Just my luck,” muttered the outlaw, in disgust. “I might have known better!”
Still leveling the revolver at Slim, Frank relinquished his grasp and stood back. Joe also withdrew. Slim, holding his hands above his head and keeping a wary eye on the weapon, got to a sitting position.
“This is luck,” Frank remarked. “We hadn’t expected to meet again so soon.”
“If I’d had any brains I wouldn’t have let myself step into a trap like this,” growled Slim.
“What were you following us for?”
“What were you doing up here?”
“Trying to find you,” said Joe cheerfully.
“Where’s Shorty and Jack and Black Pepper?”
Something in the man’s question made Frank think quickly. Was it possible that Slim had become separated from the rest of the gang?
“I suppose you know the camp’s broken up?” he remarked.
A look of surprise leaped into Slim’s face.
“No,” he said, hoarsely. “I’ve been away. What happened? You don’t mean to tell me—”
“We’re telling you nothing.”
“They caught the gang?” went on Slim.
“Wait until we take you down to Lucky Bottom. You’ll find out all about it then,” said Frank, evasively. If Slim thought the rest of the outlaws were captured he might be more disposed to talk.
“I might have known it,” said Slim gloomily. “They were gettin’ too careless. I told ’em a hundred times they’d be tripped up, especially after lettin’ you two give us the slip.”
“We might be able to make it easier for you,” Frank suggested.
“How?”
“If you’ve got any information to give us we might be able to put in a word for you.”
Slim looked at them steadily for a moment. Then he asked:
“What kind of information do you want?”
“You know what we’re hunting for.”
“The gold?”
“Of course.”
Slim was silent for a moment.
“That gang has been tryin’ to double-cross me all along,” he said at last. “I don’t owe ’em nothin’. They would have cleared out with the gold and left me here if they could.”
“Did they know where it was hidden?” asked Joe.
“Of course someone knew. They didn’t dare make a getaway with it as long as Fenton Hardy was watchin’ them. I guess the game is all up now, though. If they’ve got Black Pepper in jail they’ll make him come through and tell where it was hidden.”
“Don’t the others know?”
Slim shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell any of us. He hid the gold himself and we couldn’t find out where. He said he was afraid we’d be double-crossin’ him and stealin’ it on him. I think he planned to take it himself and ditch the whole bunch of us.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I know everythin’ about it,” said Slim boastfully. “Everythin’ except where it was hidden.”
“Who owned it in the first place?”
“You ought to know that as well as me. Bart Dawson and one of the Coulsons had it. Dawson blew into camp a while ago with Coulson and they dug up this gold. Dawson had it hid away some place. It must be about twenty years ago since he’s been here. At least that’s what Black Pepper said. He was in Lucky Bottom when Dawson was here before.”
The Hardy boys exchanged glances of surprise. The names of Bart Dawson and Coulson were familiar. These were Jadbury Wilson’s partners and the gold must be the gold that Wilson presumed Dawson had stolen from them. There was a mystery here that they could not fathom. If Dawson had stolen the gold, why did he bring Coulson back with him? Why had he waited for twenty years before returning to dig up the
