"I mean talk business," Johnny said. "Tell Tawney what he wants to know."
"When we don't know any more than he does? How?"
Johnny Coombs scratched his jaw. "I've been thinking about that," he said slowly, "and I wonder if we don't know a whole lot more than we think we do."
"Like what?" Greg said.
"We've all been looking for the same thing ... a Big Strike, a bonanza lode. Tawney's men have raked over every one of your Dad's claims, and they haven't turned up a thing." Johnny looked at Greg. "Makes you wonder a little, doesn't it? Your Dad was smart, but he was no magician. And how does a man go about hiding something like a vein of ore?"
"I don't know," Greg said. "It doesn't seem possible."
"It isn't possible," Johnny said flatly. "There's only one possible explanation, and we've been missing it all along. Whatever he found, it wasn't an ore strike. It was something else, something far different from anything we've been thinking of."
Greg stared at him. "But if it wasn't an ore strike, what was it?"
"I don't know," Johnny said. "But I'm sure of one thing ... it was something important enough that he was ready to die before he'd reveal it. And that means it was important enough that Tawney won't dare kill us until he finds out what it was."