“You must look at the markings before you pick up the snakes,” he told the lads, and then he described how to detect the luminous snakes from the other specimens. Harvey Brill could tell the queer serpents at a glance, and he was the first to capture one of those that had eluded the professor.
So eager did all become in their strange quest, searching in and out among the rocks, that they did not notice a figure slip over the edge of the precipice that hemmed in the valley, and dangling from the end of a lariat held by a number of men on top of the cliff, slide down to a fairly good foothold. Nor did they notice this same figure creeping and crawling along amid the rocks, keeping out of sight as much as was possible.
Had they observed this figure—a man—they might have recognized him as the same one who had so suddenly changed his destination in the railroad station that day—the man with the scar. But they did not see him, so eager were they to get more snakes for the professor.
And the man who had made the bold and successful attempt to enter the valley, at one of the very few places where such an attempt was feasible, crept on, murmuring to himself:
“At last I’ve got ’em just where I want ’em! They’re in our power now, and as soon as they dig out that gold I’ll signal to the others and we’ll surround ’em. It’s going to be hard work getting down here, though, and I doubt if we can all make it. That Nixon fellow is too big a coward, and so is that Bill Berry, though if it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t have gotten on the trail so easily. But here they are, and as soon as they have the gold which that fellow hid, well——”
The man did not finish, but, creeping on, was soon so near our party of friends that he could hear their talk. He had managed to keep himself hidden, though probably if Jerry and the others had not been so intent on looking for the snakes they might have seen him.
“We must hurry,” remarked Jerry, after they had found two or three more snakes lurking in crevices of the rocks. “It will soon be dark.”
“I think we have nearly all of them,” spoke Harvey Brill. “There aren’t many more hidden away.”
“Those are the nuggets he hid,” whispered the sneaking man to himself. “I’m glad I waited until they dug them out for us.”
“Here’s another!” suddenly exclaimed Bob, making a dive down in the stones. He was close to the hidden grub-staker, though the stout lad did not know it.