"I have heard of such cases," said Fenton Hardy.
"I had clean lost my memory. I didn't even know I had ever been in Lucky Bottom. Everythin' was blank up to the time I come to myself. Then, a few months ago, a doctor told me he thought he could fix me up, and I had an operation and—click! I remembered everythin'. I remembered Lucky Bottom and our mine, and how I had hidden the gold. It all come back to me. So I came back to Lucky Bottom and dug up the gold again and tried to find my pardners, and Coulson and I was ready to split it up between us, seein' we thought his brother and Jad Wilson was dead, when the outlaws stole it on us. So that's how it happened."
Frank and Joe had listened entranced.
"Why, that explains everything!" Frank declared. "It clears it all up. We couldn't believe you had been crooked, although—" he stopped in confusion.
"Although it looked mighty like it, eh?" finished Bart Dawson, with a smile. "Well, I don't blame ye for bein' suspicious. And now, if you'll take me back East with ye, I'll meet my old pardner, Jad Wilson, again, and he'll get his share of the gold. It should be enough to keep him in comfort for all the rest of his life."
"He's been having a pretty tough time," said Frank. "He'll welcome it."
"And glad I'll be to see that he gets his share. As for you, Mr. Hardy," went on Dawson, turning to the detective. "I promised you a good fee if ye'd take this case for me and I promised you a reward if the gold was found. Two thousand dollars, I said, and two thousand dollars you'll get as soon as I can get these nuggets and the gold dust changed into real money."
"I won't take it all," said Fenton Hardy. "My boys did the real work."
"That's up to you. It was your case and you can do what you like with the money. But," Dawson declared with emphasis, "if ye don't divvy up with these two lads——!"
"Don't worry," laughed the detective. "I have no intention of letting them work for nothing. I want to share the reward with them."