“I’ll do it! I’ll go with you! I’ll accept your offer. I was getting ready to go back to the West, anyhow, and this will be just the chance I want! I’m in with you boys from now on! I like your looks, and I ain’t forgot what you did at the fire.”
He shook hands all around and thus the pact was sealed. Jerry and his chums knew that their parents would be glad that an experienced man was to accompany them to the wilds of Montana. Of course Professor Snodgrass was much older than the boys, but as for worldly experience, the scientist had everything but that.
“It’ll be a good thing for us to take Bill Cromley along,” said Jerry to his chums.
“And maybe Noddy Nixon won’t go up in the air when he hears about it!” predicted Ned with a laugh. “Oh, no!”
Noddy did just that. He went back to see Bill Cromley the next day with Jack Pender, taking along a sum of money with which to bribe the old miner. And when the latter, with blazing eyes as he remembered Noddy’s war record, refused to have anything to do with the bully, Noddy burst out with invectives.
“You’re a four-flusher! That’s what you are—a four-flusher!” he shouted.
“None of that now! I know what I’m doing,” replied Bill Cromley. “I don’t want anything more to do with you! I wouldn’t go to Thunder Mountain or Blue Rock with you for a million dollars!”
“Somebody else has seen him, Noddy!” whispered Jack. “It’s Jerry Hopkins and his bunch, you can bet on that! Those Motor Boys have butted in on us again!”
“I’ll fix them if they have!” declared Noddy. “Say, how about that?” he demanded of Bill Cromley. “Have you made a contract with those other fellows who were here yesterday?”
“None of your business!”