“And the sooner the better,” added Ross.
The lads stopped at the nearest store that promised to supply their needs. As they gazed in the window, trying to make up their minds what to buy, Teddy exclaimed:
“What a nuisance it is to choose! You always have to leave behind more than you take away. 195 If I had plenty of money, I’d buy out the whole store. Wait till we unearth that fortune of Ross’ and then––”
“Sh-h, keep quiet,” warned Fred in a low tone. “You don’t want to tell the whole town all you know, do you?”
“That was a slip of the tongue for fair,” confessed Teddy ruefully, “but I won’t do it again, honest. Besides, nobody could have heard me.”
196CHAPTER XXV
ANDY SHANKS, EAVESDROPPER
Suddenly the boys heard two voices raised in what seemed to be an altercation of some kind. The sound appeared to come from behind a board fence a few feet away.
One of the speakers was evidently threatening, while the other was begging off from something that had been demanded of him.
“I tell you, I can’t,” the latter was saying. “I’ve already given you every cent of my allowance and I’ve borrowed from every friend I have in this town. You can’t get blood out of a stone. If gold dollars were selling for fifty cents, I couldn’t buy one.”