“Good-by!” he echoed. “You velly good me. Alle same you look white stal get much money. Good-by!”
For a time the four young people rode on in silence. They were all thinking over what had happened. It had come about so suddenly—the chase and capture of Hop Wong, and the strange story he told. Then Luke spoke, asking Ruth:
“What do you think of it?”
“I’m almost afraid to think,” she answered.
“If you ask me,” put in Neale, “I’ll say it’s a dream.”
“Dream, nothing, Neale O’Neil! There’s a fortune awaiting us—a buried treasure right in our cellar,” declared Agnes.
“Seriously,” went on Neale, “here’s a person—I mean the old man who drank heavily. We all know what that means—the brain doesn’t act at its best. And this toper originates a more or less sensational story about a chest of gold being hidden in the cellar of the Corner House. Do any of you believe it?”
“I do, for one!” declared Agnes.
“It does seem far-fetched, even silly,” admitted Ruth. “But then, those two men must have believed it, or else they never would have tried to get into our cellar to hunt for the iron box. And Hop Wong believes it, too.”
“That’s easily accounted for,” replied Neale. “The three of them are persons of limited intelligence and low mentality.”