“It sure is,” agreed the other.
“I saw you looking at that little packet the wrecked balloonist handed over,” Bob went on to say. “Were you thinking of opening it ahead of time, Frank?”
“Oh, I guess not,” replied the other. “How anxious you are to know what’s in that envelope. Perhaps, after all, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to us. Mr. Jared Scott may only have been thinking about his own private affairs. How do we know but what he only wants us to communicate with some of his people, after a certain time has elapsed? Anyhow, it might as well lie there for six more days; but I see that you’re going to give me little peace till then.”
“Now you’re rubbing it in on me,” remonstrated Bob. “Fact is, I only feel curious because he looked so queerly at you when he heard your name. Strikes me that perhaps what’s in the envelope might give us a clue to what’s been going on over at the Cherry Blossom mine!”
Frank looked at him closely.
“That’s only a guess on your part, Bob; you don’t know anything to point that way, do you?” he demanded.
“No, can’t say that I do,” admitted the Kentucky lad.
“Then we’ll just try to forget about it all for a while,” was Frank’s concluding decision; and Bob urged him no more.
They got off to a flying start soon after, and left behind them the high ridge that had come so near ending the career of the balloonist, Mr. Scott. During the morning the two horses kept pretty steadily at their work of putting the miles behind them. By two in the afternoon they had reached the other chain of mountains, in the heart of which the famous gold mine lay.
Both boys began to show signs of anxiety, the nearer they drew to the scene of the trouble.