“It may be you are right, Bob,” Frank said, thoughtfully, as he looked at the packet in his hand; “but you remember I gave him my solemn promise that I wouldn’t open this envelope until seven days had passed; and there’s some time yet before then.”
“Yes, you promised him,” said Bob, “but I didn’t say a word!”
With that he snatched the envelope from the hand of his chum, and tore the end off, as though he feared that Frank might try and stop him. But Frank evidently had no such intention just then. Perhaps he realized how conditions had arisen that changed the complexion of things very much. Jared Scott, an honest aeronaut, and Jared Scott, the accomplice of the gold thieves, were two different persons. And a promise made under such deception might not hold.
Bob was eagerly reading what the man had written. To do this he had to bend down to the lantern. Frank, and all the others in the room, watched him intently, eager to know the import of the message.
When Bob finished the short contents of Jared Scott’s mysterious note, he leaped up, and clutched Frank’s hands.
“It’s all right, Frank!” he exclaimed. “Just what I said, he wanted us to recover the treasure, because he feared he’d never get over his injuries. And he’s set it all down here in black and white, just where he dropped each bag when almost touching the earth. We can’t help but find ’em, Frank! Whoop! what luck! I feel like I could screech like a Navajo Indian in the war dance,” and Bob did actually start to hop around the shack, as though unable to control himself.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW IT TURNED OUT—CONCLUSION
“Let me look at what he wrote, since you’ve chosen to break the seal,” said Frank, holding out his hand, into which his chum placed the page torn from the memorandum book of Jared Scott.
The man had indeed carefully noted just where he dropped each sack, when compelled to lose them. One would be found at the foot of three cedars, that stood out by themselves in a certain place he described; a second in a little gully that crossed an open stretch of ground, where two trails came together; while the third, and last, had been tossed out on the summit of the range where the basket had collided with the rocks.
Frank saw that the directions were so clear that they would not have a great deal of trouble in locating the three bags. If they had burst by coming in contact with the ground their heavy contents would still lie in a heap, and could be easily gathered up.