"Gee whiz! Now thet's what I call fortunate! If I hadn't a cotched ye, ye would be goin' off on a wild goose chase, with no end to the trail."
"A wild goose chase? O, Ike, have you word from my uncle?"
"No, I ain't got no word from him, but I got word in a way thet two rascals didn't dream on."
"But what do you know?" questioned Allen impatiently.
"Not much, ter tell the truth, an' yet a good deal. It happened this mornin', when I wuz down to Casey's Fork. I wuz ridin' along the old B'ar Trail when along comes a couple o' the worst lookin' bad men ye ever seed. Sez one to tudder, 'If we can make him tell us whar the mine is, we will all become millionaires.' Then sez tudder, 'We'll make him speak. We didn't trap Barnaby Winthrop inter leavin' San Francisco fer nuthin'.' The fellers wuz on the bottom trail, while I wuz up on the rocks. I tried to git to 'em to make 'em tell me wot wuz the meanin' of it all, when they spied me comin' down, an' by the grasshoppers o' Kansas! ye ought ter hev seed 'em put an' scoot. They got out o' sight in a jiffy, an' I couldn't locate 'em, try my best. I hung around an hour, an' then I made up my mind ter ride over an' tell ye wot I hed heard."
Not only Allen, but also Noel Urner and Daddy Wampole were astonished by the revelation Ike Watson made.
"Uncle Barnaby trapped into leaving San Francisco!" gasped Allen. "Did they say where they had taken him?"
"Didn't say nuthin' more'n I told ye," responded the hunter from Gold Fork. "Leas'wise, didn't say nuthin' ez I could hear."
"Who were the men?"
"I don't know, 'ceptin' I seed 'em hangin' around Jordan Creek about six months ago. Like ez not they belong to the old Sol Davids gang. Nearly every one up thet water course belonged to thet gang."