"What does this mean, Reade?" gasped President Haynes, looking thunderstruck.
"It means, sir," reported Tom, wheeling about, "that this fellow, Montez, threatened us with death if we did not sign a glaringly false report concerning El Sombrero Mine. We were also to be killed if we did not stand by our report to the fullest degree after you and your friends arrived."
"Then El Sombrero Mine is worthless?" cried Mr. Haynes, his face turning a ghastly white.
"As far as I know, sir, or as far as Hazelton knows," Tom Reade made prompt answer. "El Sombrero isn't worth the cost even of filling up the shaft."
"And you, Reade—and you, Hazelton—the men we trusted implicitly—you stood by and saw us robbed!"
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
"I don't blame you for being angry," Tom answered, quickly. "However, you may safely go a bit slow on the idea that we stood by to see you robbed, merely to save our lives. We had tried to escape from here. We even sent out two letters by secret messengers, these letters to be mailed at points distant from here. The letters would have told our friends in the United States what was up. But, in some way of his own, Don Luis managed to catch the messengers and get hold of the letters."
"Then," added Harry Hazelton, "we thought we were doomed if we didn't yield to Don Luis's commands. Even at that, we were prepared to accept death sooner than sell ourselves out. Death would have been the cheapest way out of the scrape. But at last we found a way of helping Don Luis in the way he wanted, and of getting square with the rascal at the same time. Tell them what I mean, Tom."
"Why, it was like this," said Tom, seating himself on the railing of the porch, and facing the assemblage. "Harry and I began to roam all over this property, as though to kill time. Out in Nevada, as it happens, we two and a friend of ours own a mine that seemed almost worthless. Almost by accident we discovered that we were working the mine just a little off from the real vein. Now, we didn't find that El Sombrero was being worked off the vein. What we did find was in that big strip of forest over to the east of El Sombrero—"