The undisguised interest of his audience served to set the orator in the best of humors, so that he grinned cheerfully on them as he resumed:
“There are some facts that tend to show the impossibility of Masters having already removed the money from this place. It was late when Roy got his hurt from the hands of the engineer. It is reasonable to suppose that the fellow had had no chance to find, much less take away, the gold before the time when he encountered Roy. Now, the time that elapsed, after Roy received his wound until our coming to the cavern, was not very long. You doubtless remember that we were routed out at an unchristian hour, little better than the middle of the night. In fact, the dawn was still on the other side of the hills when we made the island. We were here not more than three hours after Roy got shot, and it is more likely that the interval was less. I am inclined to think it was perhaps not more than two hours. David, here, knows something about gold and its weight. I submit as reasonable the statement that, had Masters found the gold in this hole, he could not in the time at his disposal have removed that weight of metal to any distance without aid.
“We are justified in believing that he works unaided, for the sake of greed and for the sake of prudence. If you bear in mind the length of this passage, and the impossibility of traversing it except slowly and cautiously, even unburdened, you will appreciate my reasons for suspecting that Masters has not carried off the gold.” Billy stared inquiringly at the listeners, and appeared elated as they severally nodded agreement.
“No,” David declared, “I believe it would have been next to impossible for him to have got away with it, even if he hid it close by on the island. From the way the blood on Roy’s face was caked, and the color of it, I don’t believe it had been an hour after the shooting when we got here.”
“If you’re right about that,” Billy averred, “it makes the probability of my reasoning a certainty.”
“I’m pretty sure,” David answered. “I’ve seen bullet-holes enough to be pretty sure.”
“Why, then,” Saxe exclaimed, briskly, and there was new confidence in his voice, “it seems to me that we’re just where we were—with the gold still to find. In the first place, we must make sure that it isn’t still here in this pit, and, if it isn’t, we must go ahead with the search of the cavern, until we find out where it is.”
Billy emitted a rumbling chuckle, as Saxe leaped down into the pit, and raised a pickaxe.
“My dear boy,” the sage cried, in bantering compliment, “for once you have reasoned simply and precisely. Bravo!”
Not much time was required to make evident the fact that there could be nothing of value concealed in the pit. The litter was readily penetrated, and revealed beneath it solid rock, undisturbed since first set there by the processes of primeval ages. The discovery was a source of relief, rather than of disappointment, and Saxe, doubtless encouraged by the tribute accorded to his reasoning powers by Billy Walker, called attention to the fact that the amount of loose matter in the pit was far from being sufficient to have concealed any great bulk of gold. It was, therefore, reasonable to suppose that the treasure had never been buried in this place.