Then, as Slim Briggs burst into a wild outbreak of bitter recrimination against the way in which he had deceived himself, the boys withdrew and the cell door clanged.
The old miner laughed and slapped Frank on the shoulder.
"I guess Bart Dawson come along just in time!" he declared. "Sheriff would have let that bird go if I hadn't got the boys to back you up." He turned to the sheriff. "We've seen that Slim is in jail," he said. "You're responsible for keepin' him there. If he gets out—" he snapped his fingers ominously—"it means a new sheriff in Lucky Bottom."
CHAPTER XVII
The Outlaw's Notebook
"Are you Bart Dawson?" asked Frank.
"That's me," said the old man. "I'm the fellow they stole that there gold from."
The Hardy boys looked curiously at the old miner. From what they had heard of Bart Dawson from Jadbury Wilson they had been prepared to dislike him. But he appeared so genial and friendly and his grizzled old face was apparently so honest that they could not help but feel drawn to him. He certainly did not look like the sort of man who would desert his partners and rob them in the way Jadbury Wilson had described. Still, the evidence seemed all against him. He had betrayed his comrades and decamped with their gold, according to Wilson's story.
But why, argued Frank, should he wait twenty years to return for the wealth he had hidden? Why should he return with one of the Coulsons? Could it be possible that the pair had been in league with one another against Jadbury Wilson? The mystery defied explanation, but the more Frank looked at the jovial, honest face of the old man before him the more he was convinced that Bart Dawson had none of the earmarks of either thief or traitor.