[CHAPTER VI]
LAYING A PLOT
Silence fell over the Motor Boys when they heard this confession of vain regret from the old miner. They could appreciate his feelings, knowing Noddy Nixon and Jack Pender as they did.
“Do you mean he really came to you with an offer to hire you to guide him to the place where the treasure chest fell over the cliff at Blue Rock?” asked Jerry at length.
“He did that!” said the miner. “Offered me a good sum, too. Why, hasn’t Noddy any money?”
“Oh, yes, he has money—that’s one of the bad things against him,” stated Ned. “He can do things because of his money that other fellows can’t do. He has some his grandfather left him, I think, and it’s his own to do as he pleases with. His folks can’t control him. He’s a bad egg!”
“He sure is!” echoed Bob. “And always was.”
“Well, I’m sorry for having blurted out what I did,” repeated Bill Cromley. “But I reckoned he was open and aboveboard. Of course any one has a right to search for that treasure chest that wants to—it’s abandoned, so to speak.”
“Then we have as good a right to it as anybody else, haven’t we?” asked Bob.
“You certainly have,” asserted the miner. “I guess I must have said it was a case of findings is keepings to this Noddy Nixon or he wouldn’t have asked me to pilot him and that Jack Pender to Thunder Mountain.”