“I think it’s buried here,” declared Frank. “There’s the mark of a shovel.”
“I’ll get that shovel we had in the other room. Lend me the light for a second.”
Frank handed his brother the flashlight, and Joe disappeared from the blue chamber. His footsteps echoed in the narrow passage.
As Frank Hardy waited in the dank darkness, he felt a curious exultation possess him. They were on the verge of solving the mystery of the hidden gold—if only the outlaws had not removed it from its hiding place. He waited in suspense for his brother’s return.
XXII
Black Pepper
In a few minutes Frank Hardy saw the gleam of the light and heard his brother’s footsteps as Joe returned. He was carrying the shovel that had served them to such good purpose in uncovering the secret door to the passageway of the blue room.
“I’ll dig,” he volunteered, handing the flashlight to Frank.
Then, with a will, he set to work.
The earth was soft, which showed that it had been dug up before and replaced. Frank held the light, directing its beam on the place where Joe was digging, and as a hole rapidly appeared in the ground he watched eagerly for some sign of the treasure which they sought.
In his mind was always the hated probability that they might have been forestalled and that the outlaws might have already visited the place and removed the gold. But, in that case, he argued to himself, it was not likely that they would have taken such precautions to bank up the locked door of the passage. There would have been no need for it.
“Nothing yet,” panted Joe.
“It may be buried deep.”
A far-off sound caught Frank’s ear. He started violently, because his nerves were already tautened by suspense.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
Joe rested on the shovel.
“I heard something,” he said doubtfully.
They listened, but the sound was not repeated.
“It might have been a fall of rock,” said Frank. “It sounded like rocks striking against the walls of the shaft.”
“It’s just like my thinking I heard voices a while ago. This place is so silent and creepy it gets your nerves all unstrung.”
“Maybe.”
Joe resumed his shoveling.
Another shovelful of earth and he bent forward.
“Something here!” he exclaimed. “My shovel struck something solid.”
Frank brought the flashlight closer. Just above the earth he could see the top of a canvas sack.
“It’s the gold! Dig, Joe. Dig!”
Joe Hardy needed no urging. He had seized the shovel again and the earth was flying furiously on all sides. Rapidly, he uncovered the top of the canvas sack, and then a second appeared in view. Frank bent down and seized one of the sacks, dragging it from the retaining earth. It came free. Joe flung aside his shovel and, in the illumination from the flashlight, Frank undid the heavy cord at the top of the sack and opened it.
He thrust his hand inside and withdrew it a moment later, clutching a handful of reddish brown objects that looked like pebbles.
“Nuggets!”
The boys gazed at the gold nuggets in silent delight. They were of good size, and the youths realized that they must be very valuable. Frank thrust his hand into the sack again and this time brought forth a handful of reddish sand that they recognized as gold dust.
“Gold dust and nuggets! We’ve found it at last!”
“There are more sacks yet. Didn’t dad say there were four?”
Joe picked up his shovel again. After a few minutes’ energetic digging he uncovered the rest of the sacks and in a short time all four were on the floor of the cave.
The Hardy boys examined each in turn, and found that each was identical with the first in that it contained gold dust and nuggets in large quantities. The sight of so much gold sent a thrill through them, just as it has sent a thrill through gold-seekers since the world began. Here was wealth, wealth in the raw, wealth for which men had fought and struggled, wealth that had been drawn from the depths of the earth.
“We’ve found it at last!” Frank declared, with a sigh of relief.
“Dad will be pleased.”
“I don’t think he ever really expected we’d find it.”
“We’ve worked hard enough for it. Won’t the outlaws be wild when they come here for it and find that it’s gone!”
“Let them be wild. It isn’t theirs.”
“Four sacks of it,” said Joe. “It must be worth thousands.”
“It’s the gold that Jadbury Wilson mentioned. I’m sure of that. And before we hand it over to Bart Dawson we’ll have an explanation from him.”
“Somehow, I can’t believe he’s dishonest. There must be a mistake in it somewhere, Frank.”
“You can’t always tell by looks in this world. Although, to tell the truth, I find it hard to believe that Dawson made away with this, myself. But we’ll make him come across with the whole story, and if he did steal it, we’ll see that Wilson gets his share.”
“That’s the ticket. And now—to get out of this mine with it.”
“It’ll be easy enough. We can go up the shaft. That’s the way the outlaws got in here, I guess. We took the wrong entrance getting in here. We got into one of the side workings of the mine instead of coming down the main way.”
“As long as we don’t run into any more wolves I don’t care how we get out,” said Joe. “The sooner we get out though, the better. It must be night by now.”
Frank bent and picked up two of the sacks of gold.
“I’ll carry two and you carry two. Boy, but they’re heavy! I never knew gold weighed so much.”
“I shouldn’t care if it weighed a ton. It won’t seem like much, now that we’ve found it at last.”
Frank hesitated.
“It might be as well to dig a little deeper there. They might have divided the gold up. I’d hate to overlook a sack of it.”
“I was just thinking the same
