CHAPTER XXI.—THE CLUE IN THE ROCKS.
Clay looked quickly about, but there was no one in sight. Alex, from the old mine dump, pointed downward, so the boy knew that the natives referred to were near the river and working upward.
“If they get up by that route they’ll be doing something,” Don remarked. “Never heard of any one doing it.”
“Well, there are people coming up, just the same,” Clay went on.
“Then they’re coming up to look up the mine!” Don declared. “There’s probably been a lot of talk about the mine lately, and the people of the county are all stirred up over it!”
“They haven’t got anything on us,” Clay grinned. “We saw it first!”
“You’re right about that, but here’s the bunch coming! Hear their voices? Suppose we duck out of sight? Can we get back into the mine?”
“I can,” replied Clay, and in a minute the shelf where the boys had stood was empty.
In five minutes’ time, however, half a dozen roughly dressed men were talking in front of the opening from which the lads looked out; that is, as near in front of it as they could get without standing on air!
“I say there was some one up here!” a harsh voice insisted. “The people over there were shouting across to him.”
“Where is he, then?” asked another voice.
“I don’t know! I half believe some of those confounded boys have found the mine opening and hidden it in!”
“I guess they can’t find it if we can’t,” came another voice.
“But Flint said it was somewhere off this shelf.”
“If he knew where it was, why didn’t he find it?”
And so the talk went on, while the men searched every foot of the shelf and the wall back of the shelf. It was clear that Flint, after being arrested for the murder of Trumbull, had tried to buy his liberty by proclaiming a discovery of the famous Durand mine!
“We don’t have to discover it to-day,” was finally said. “We can come back at any time and locate it.”
“But what about those boys? Old Dave Durand left a paper, so I’m told, saying that whoever found this mine might have it. Now, if these boys find it, what good does that do us?”
“Well, keep right on looking if you want to!” was the surly answer. “I’ve had enough of climbing to-day. Besides, those people on the old mine dump are watching us. We wouldn’t dare enter the mine if we should find it—not with them looking on!”
“I wish we had our searchlights,” Clay remarked, as soon as the others had disappeared. “We may be in the mine and we may not be! I don’t believe there is any gold or silver here, anyway! If there was gold here, there would be outcroppings in other places close by.”
“That is the way it strikes me,” Don returned. “If there is anything of value in here, I reckon Uncle David put it here. If you knew what a queer old fellow he was, you would think so, too.”
“What would he have to hide here? He secreted the bonds in the old house at Yuma, and it seems to me that if he had possessed other things of great worth he would have put them with the bonds.”
“There is no knowing how much money the old fellow had,” Don continued. “He made a million or more in Chicago real estate, and at the time of his death, I am told, there wasn’t a cent of his money in any of the Chicago banks. He was afraid of banks. I guess that Mr. Frost was the only banker he ever trusted, and he trusted him with his nephews and not with his money! Oh, yes,” the boy went on, with a sigh, “the poor old man sent word to Frost to look after Tom and I! So Frost says. I never knew that Uncle cared enough about us to do even that!”
“What would he naturally leave in a place like this?” asked Clay.
“Bonds or money—money, probably.”
“I’ve got a few matches left,” Clay insisted, “and I’m going to use them to see what sort of a place this is. If there is any money here we ought to be getting it out.”
“Yes; before the natives come back,”
Clay lit a match and looked about. Where he stood there was merely a long passage, high and roomy at the back but narrowing down to the small opening the boys had used in front. There were no openings in the walls, no places where anything might have been stored away.
“Now, go on in farther before you light another,” Don suggested. “He may have made a hiding-place of the next angle.”
The flame of the match revealed a shallow niche in the north wall. In the niche lay a metal box the size of a sardine box. It was covered with rust, and did not open readily when Clay drew at the cover.
It came open after a time, however, and both boys bent over it.
“This isn’t a treasure!” Don exclaimed. “This is a clue! A sure enough clue in the rocks! And only paper!”
Clay put the box, closed, into a pocket and moved toward the entrance. Don followed on behind, gloomily enough. He had expected so much of the discovery they had made, and a tin box had been the only product of it!
“Just our luck!” he complained, as the two stumbled along.
“Never you mind!” Clay said. “How do you know what this box contains? It is only a paper, but even a paper may tell where a million is hidden! Wait until we get out into the sunshine, and we’ll see what it says. Your Uncle David certainly was an odd one! The idea of any one in his right mind hiding a paper in a dreary place like that!”
At last the boys reached the ledge again. Mr. Frost, Alex and Tom were still on the level dump in front of the old mine. They motioned to Clay and Don as they came out, indicating that they were going away to look for the Rambler. Clay held up the box, drew the paper out, and held that up, too. There was excitement across the great chasm!
Alex seemed to be pointing the way down, and Banker Frost was motioning to Clay to be careful of the box and the paper.
“If those natives got down from here, we can!” Don exclaimed. “We can go anywhere they can! How we are going to get across the river is what gets me! Can you swim it?”
“I’m not going to take the risk,” was the reply. “They will have to come after us in the Rambler.”
“But the Rambler has disappeared,” Don reminded the other.
“I don’t believe anything serious has happened to her!” Clay insisted. “Case and King ought to be able to take good care of her.”
Just as the boy finished speaking the clamor of the motors of the Rambler was heard. King and Case had picked up the broken rowboat and started up toward the old anchorage.
But the motor boat did not stop at the landing. Instead, she ran up toward the old mine. It was pretty risky, but the Rambler was staunch and true to her helm, and finally passed the perilous places and lay in reasonably quiet water opposite the mine. Under ordinary circumstances King would not have countenanced such an undertaking, but both were anxious over the fate of the boys who had gone off in the small boat, and they were anxious to confer with Frost and the others on the subject.
The three on the dump, after a long and difficult downward climb, reached the water’s edge and managed to get on board without getting wet, as the river was deep and still at the end of the dump, and the motor boat ran up close to the bank.
They had scarcely begun telling the story of the missing boys when Alex pointed to Clay and Don, crawling down the opposite wall like flies.
“How did they ever get there?” asked King, amazement in his face.
“We’ll never know until they tell us!” laughed Alex. “Can’t you run the boat over and get them?”
Here was another risk, but finally, by running far up stream and coming down on the west side and tossing out a long rope, Clay and Don, wet but triumphant, were hauled on board. Clay with the precious metal box containing the paper wrapped up in his coat and held as much out of the river as possible.
When the box was opened and the paper spread out, it was found to hold only a map of the old shack by the mine. Under the location of the window in the sitting room where Trumbull had been shot to death, the paper showed a black mark—a great cross, evidently made to imitate the rocky formation above the cave where the paper had been discovered.
“So it wasn’t a treasure you found in the mine,” laughed Frost, looking at the map, “it was only a clue!”
Clay insisted that the boat be put back to the mine landing, and again they all made the long climb to the old house. There was no mark of any description under the window designated by the map, but Alex found a hatchet and went at the ceiling with which the room was lined.
In a moment he came to a metal surface off which the hatchet slipped.
“Work around it! Dig it out! It is a treasure chest!”
Don laughed as he spoke, for, to tell the truth, he had no idea that anything more of great value would be found. His idea was that the bonds already found had constituted the greater part of his uncle’s wealth.
Directly a steel box which weighed at least fifty pounds was brought out. The cover was on tight, and there was no key. In fact, it did not seem possible to get the box open without having it cut with tools secured for that special purpose.
Frost looked at the box closely and smiled as he noted how neatly the lock was concealed—even the keyhole, if one there was, being out of sight. The box was carried aboard the Rambler, with great difficulty, and then a start for the old landing was made.
The surprise of the day was when the mysterious box was opened!