"That's how it stands now. I don't know whether to believe the two outlaws we captured or not. They may have been telling the truth. The gold may have really been stolen by the chap who deserted them. They said he later escaped from them and that they thought he had probably gone back to where he had hidden the gold and made away with it."
"In that case there wouldn't be much chance of getting it again."
"It's that circumstance that makes me suspicious of the story. If the deserter had recovered the gold and cleared out, the outlaws would likely give up hunting for it and they would certainly give up bothering me. But they are still in the vicinity and I have an idea they know just where the gold is and are waiting for a chance to get their hands on it. I think this story about the chap deserting from the gang and making away with the loot is false. They just wanted to throw me off the trail and probably thought I'd give up the case and go back East, leaving them a clear field."
"What is your theory about the gold?"
"I think they know where it is, all right. They have it hidden away safely but they don't dare remove it. They'll wait until the affair dies down and then they'll probably separate and leave this district, meeting somewhere else to divide the loot."
"Our problem is—"
"To find that gold." Fenton Hardy looked steadily at his sons as he said this. "I have a lot of confidence in you," he went on. "It just requires a lot of hard work and keeping your eyes open. Mainly, it will keep the gang on the jump. They'll know we haven't given up the case and they'll be afraid to do anything. And now," he said, "you might tell me how you happen to have heard the names of Bart Dawson and Black Pepper before."
Frank and Joe then told their father of their meeting with Jadbury Wilson, the old miner who said he had once lived in Lucky Bottom. They deemed it best not to mention the fact that Jadbury Wilson suspected Bart Dawson of stealing from him. If Bart Dawson were back in Lucky Bottom they felt safer in reserving this bit of information. They merely told their father that Wilson had mentioned the names of Dawson and Black Pepper, among others, as having lived in Lucky Bottom at the time he had been a miner there.
"What kind of chap is Dawson?" asked Frank.
"One of the finest!" declared their father promptly. "He is a real square-shooter, as the miners would say. The loss of the gold has broken him all up. He told me he had had hard luck all his life and now that he had a fortune within his grasp it was heart-breaking to lose it again."