"Let's try to get closer. We can move behind the barn and probably hear everything without being observed."
The two men were so engrossed in their conversation that they failed to see the girls moving stealthily across the clearing. A moment more and they were protected by the barn.
Penny and Susan crept as close to the men as they dared and then stood listening. They could hear Walter Crocker speaking.
"This is the last warning I'll give you," he told the old man. "Will you fork up the money or shall I go to the authorities?"
"Give me time," Herman replied in a whining voice. "I've already given you all the cash I have in the bank."
"I know better," said Walter Crocker grimly. "You have plenty of money but you're too miserly to part with it. But maybe you'd rather keep your stolen gold and go to jail!"
"You can't send me to jail—I've done nothing wrong."
"No?" asked the other mockingly. "I suppose you consider it perfectly legal to appropriate the inheritance of your nephew and lead townfolks to believe that your sister died without leaving a child."
"You have no proof that you are Jenny's child. I'm not going to pay you another cent. It's blackmail!"
"Call it what you like," replied Walter Crocker with a sneer. "I am your sister Jenny's child whom you thought to be safely out of the way. And I do have proof."