“Eh? What’s that? Treasure? No, my dear boy, I’m looking for the flying frog. This seems a likely place to find one.”
“And we’ll have a look for the treasure,” said Ned, smiling at the odd indifference of the professor. “It ought to be somewhere around here—if Brown and Black, or whatever their names are—told the truth.”
After a glance at the wrecked craft the three boys began eagerly looking for the loot from the bank.
“First we’d better make sure it isn’t still aboard,” suggested Jerry. “They had two or three compartments on their craft where they could carry the money.”
It needed but the most casual glance, however, to show that none of the treasure was now aboard the Silver Star. In fact the several compartments or boxes of which Jerry had spoken were smashed beyond holding anything. In the corner of one, however, where it had become jammed, was part of the same curious implement that had first aroused their suspicions.
“That’s the drill they used to make a hole in the safe door, so they could put in the explosive,” declared Bob.
“Yes, and we’d better take it along for evidence,” remarked Jerry, as he carried the tool to their own machine.
“And there’s not so much as a gold-piece here,” gloomily went on Ned, after a careful survey of the ground about the wreck. “I guess they’ve got it hidden somewhere.”
“I don’t agree with you,” declared Jerry. “I think it was in the ship after they were spilled out. How long it remained after that we can’t say. But I’m going to have a look back over the air path which this machine took in coming here.”
They were hopeful at first, but when, after a walk of several hours, they had not even found a scrap of paper they began to get discouraged. All about them was the vast, silent forest, in which it seemed that the foot of man had not been set since the Indians had disappeared.