The words were enough to set the whole camp astir had it not already been galvanized into life by the sight of the armed men guarding the others on horses.
“Watch out, fellows!” warned Teddy in a low voice. “Some of their friends may try a rescue!” He nodded toward the prisoners.
“Friends!” ejaculated Roy. “They won’t have any friends when we tell what happened—and when they hear Silent’s story.”
So it proved. Feeling ran high against the outlaws and there were a few reckless spirits in Nugget Camp who would have taken the prisoners from the X Bar X boys and strung the criminals to the nearest trees. But wiser counsel prevailed.
Luckily there had come to camp that morning a deputy sheriff on some other mission. But when he saw the prisoners and heard the story, he quickly swore in other deputies to aid him and, taking charge of the prisoners, soon had them as safely housed as was possible in that rough country.
“And to think you fellers caught them!” murmured more than one rough old miner, as what Roy and Teddy Manley had done became broadcast about camp. “Sufferin’ hoptoads! Some nerve!”
“Not much nerve needed when we knew what had happened to Silent,” remarked Teddy.
The excitement did not last long—excitement was too readily made to order in Nugget Camp—and when the prisoners had been taken away with the promise of justice being meted out to them, the new prospectors went back to working their claims.
But they did not forget the boast Allen had made about the quantity of gold concealed in the lair of the outlaws, and when they had time to investigate, Roy, Teddy, and their friends went back to recover it.
Allen had not been wrong. A large quantity of gold dust, some almost pure nuggets, and a large quantity of ore as thickly studded with lumps of gold as is a Christmas pudding with plums, was collected. Most of it had been stolen at different times from miners who had made lucky strikes and who had foolishly talked too freely of their good fortune, or else who, as foolishly, “hit the red-eye trail” and became so helpless that they fell easy prey to the thugs in Greyhound’s gang.