“I guess not,” snapped back Witherbee. “Old man Fogg died shortly after midnight, as I can easily prove, and therefore the will became operative at that time.”
“I see you know some law,” remarked the clerk. “I guess, Mr. Barr, your claim is not valid.”
But Barr, raging furiously, had gone.
Outside the door he saw the boys. Beside himself with rage, he shook his fist at them. His rage was too intense to permit him to speak. The sheriff and everybody in the crowd insisted on shaking hands with Bart Witherbee and hearing again and again his strange story and the details of how the will had been found hidden in the hut. At last, however, accompanied by the sheriff, whose duty it was in that rough community to look after old Fogg’s, or Jack Riggs’ body, the boys and their miner friend managed to tear themselves away and sped back to the hermit’s hut in their auto. They found everything as they had left it, and, on tearing up the floor, according to the instructions left in the old man’s will, they found that a huge pit had been dug there, which was filled to the brim with ore which the old miser had painstakingly carried through his tunnel from his mine. A rough estimate valued it at $350,000.
“How do you suppose Luther Barr ever managed to locate the mine?” asked Frank wonderingly.
“That puzzled me, too, at first,” said the sheriff, “but now, since I have found that Hank Higgins and Noggy Wilkes knew Wild Bill Jenkins, it is a mystery no longer. Wild Bill boasted some time ago that he knew where the mine was, but he was forced to become a fugitive from justice before he had time to file any claim to it.”
Suddenly the voice of Billy Barnes, who had wandered out onto the trail with a rifle, was borne to their ears:
“Boys! Boys! Come quick!” he cried. There was urgent entreaty in his tone.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SAND STORM.
Rushing out in the direction of the cries, the boys found Billy struggling in the grasp of Fred Reade, Luther Barr, and Slade, while the red-headed mechanic was striking at the aeroplane with a big wrench.