Silence fell on the village street after Barr and Reade had entered the office. The crowd outside stood gaping in curiosity as to what could be the business that had brought the strangers galloping in such evident haste to the assay office. The sheriff, with a side glance at Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes, resumed his whittling.
Suddenly the quiet was broken by the sharp chug-chug of an approaching automobile.
“Here comes a choo-choo cart,” remarked the sheriff, springing to his feet and peering up the road.
“That’s what it is,” answered a man in the crowd, “and coming like blue blazes, too.”
As he spoke, the boys’ auto swept round a wooded curve and came tearing along toward the assay office. In the tonneau stood Bart Witherbee, his face strained and eager, and holding a crumpled paper in his hand. Frank was at the wheel and the other boys were beside their miner friend in the tonneau.
“Seem ter be in a hurry,” drawled the sheriff, as the party swept up to the low porch, the crowd falling back to make way for them with wondering glances.
Luther Barr’s lean face appeared at the dusty window of the Government Office.
“A hundred dollars if you file that claim in time,” he shouted to the astonished clerk, who thought the old man had gone suddenly mad.
Bart Witherbee made a flying leap from the auto, and almost before it stopped had raced up the steps. But before he could gain the door of the assay office he found himself looking into the muzzles of two revolvers held by Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes.
