In five minutes’ time, however, half a dozen roughly dressed men were talking in front of the opening from which the lads looked out; that is, as near in front of it as they could get without standing on air!
“I say there was some one up here!” a harsh voice insisted. “The people over there were shouting across to him.”
“Where is he, then?” asked another voice.
“I don’t know! I half believe some of those confounded boys have found the mine opening and hidden it in!”
“I guess they can’t find it if we can’t,” came another voice.
“But Flint said it was somewhere off this shelf.”
“If he knew where it was, why didn’t he find it?”
And so the talk went on, while the men searched every foot of the shelf and the wall back of the shelf. It was clear that Flint, after being arrested for the murder of Trumbull, had tried to buy his liberty by proclaiming a discovery of the famous Durand mine!
“We don’t have to discover it to-day,” was finally said. “We can come back at any time and locate it.”
“But what about those boys? Old Dave Durand left a paper, so I’m told, saying that whoever found this mine might have it. Now, if these boys find it, what good does that do us?”