There was silence, some of the boys, especially Bobolink, trying to imagine how much money twenty thousand dollars was. Jack asked, “But how do you know he came to get the money?”
“That’s simple. I watched him until he found what he was looking for and then I showed myself and told him who I was. And he very courteously and promptly surrendered.”
“What about the shot?” asked Paul.
“That was his fault,” and the agent nodded in the prisoner’s direction. “He accidentally discharged his gun.”
For some while the boys sat there humbly, silently thinking over Tom Woods’ story. Paul rose, stretched himself and yawned. “Some night!” he drawled. “I’m going back for some more sleep.”
All the other boys did likewise, except Bobolink whose watch it was. And after him, Jack.
In the morning, Tom Woods took his prisoner to town and returned in about an hour, carrying under his arm a small package. When asked what was in the package, he merely said that it contained several sticks of dynamite. But when pressed to tell what he was going to use it for, he laughed and replied, “Wait and see.”
Instead of loading all the cases of guns and boxes of ammunition onto the plane, the government agent had a truck come from town to transport the load. It took the truck driver and the boys several hours to cart all the cases and boxes from the cave to the truck. When it was at last done, the agent called the boys together and said, “Now you’ll see the purpose of the dynamite.”
He strung together the several pieces of dynamite, attached a fuse to it and buried the bundle of explosives at the mouth of the cave; then he laid out the fuse for about twenty feet and lit it. As he did so he and the boys retreated some distance. “Why are you doing that?” asked Jack.
“To shut up the mouth of the cave.”