“Hum, you and your birds’-nest soup!” exclaimed Tinny, with a laugh. “Too bad you weren’t blown to Kingdom Come! No more gas, Hang Gow!” he warned.
“All lite—no mlo gas,” agreed the Chinese blandly.
It was night before the boys’ baggage and that of Professor Snodgrass had been brought up from Livingston and the arrangements made for the sleeping of the party while at Thunder Mountain. There was considerable to do in order to get settled that had nothing to do with actual mining.
“We’ll take up that question in the morning,” said Tinny. “I’ll let you inspect the place, look at specimens of the ore, read the report of the assay office, and then you can decide if you want to go into this with me. But first of all we’ll find out if this Noddy Nixon is going to bother us. You say he’s been on your trail?”
“Yes, ever since we began to consider your offer,” answered Jerry. “But how are you going to find out about him?”
“I’ll ask the fellows who brought up the baggage if they saw him and his two cronies hanging about the station.”
Inquiry developed the fact that Noddy had been a bit puzzled by the sudden disappearance of the Motor Boys’ party, though, undoubtedly, he must know they had reached Thunder Mountain.
“He and his crowd got a fellow to take them in and board them for a while,” reported the driver of the truck that had brought up the luggage.
“Then we’ll have to reckon on Noddy dogging us still,” suggested Ned.