“That’s the spirit. Anyhow, don’t go looking for the mine until we make sure the bullion can’t be recovered. The thieves haven’t got very much the start of us, and Hawkins is a regular terror when he cuts loose on the track of a lawbreaker. Pin your faith to Hawkins, boy, and hope for the best.”
“Maybe,” said Frank, after a little hard thinking, “Lenning isn’t mixed up in the robbery, after all.”
“Don’t fool yourself about that. You’re not helping matters any by starting on the wrong track. Lenning is gone. That’s the strongest point against him. How can you get around that?”
“He may have met with foul play——”
Burke laughed scoffingly.
“Nonsense! Everything points to the fact that he engineered all the foul play himself.”
“Wait a minute, Burke,” urged Merriwell. “When I was coming to the mine, I heard something like a call for help. It was a smothered sort of cry, just as though some one was having a hard time using his voice.”
Burke began to show some interest.
“Where did you hear the cry?” he asked.
“Just as I started down the slope toward the mine. I was in the trail, at the time, and it wasn’t until the cry was repeated that I gave much attention to it. You see, the stamps made so much noise that I couldn’t be sure. After a while I thought I located the sound in a clump of greasewood. I pounded around in the bushes but couldn’t find any one. Just as I had given up and was starting on again, I heard the shout once more. This time it was still farther away from the trail, seemingly. I tried to follow it, and tumbled head over heels into one of your open cuts. It’s the cut just above the cyanide works. After I got out of that hole, I came down to the tanks and tried to find Lenning. Now, what did those cries for help mean?”