The three young fellows shook their heads violently, thus indicating how much they trusted him.
Mr. Gray, also, shook his head.
“I will have to take time to think this over very seriously,” he said. “I am too old and weak to brave the dangers of such a trip. I can’t let you lads go alone, or with Mr. Morgan——”
“Just call me ‘Hen’—the ‘Hen that lays the golden eggs!’”
“Or with ‘Hen,’” smiled Mr. Gray, “but——” And there he stopped.
Their mounts were unsaddled and they stayed on overnight because of the new development. But after an evening of eager discussion, with urgent pleas for action by the youths and hesitancy on the part of Mr. Gray, their course of action was still undecided. Leaving Morgan with a promise to “get in touch” the minute they made a plan, they rode slowly away down the trail the next day.
“I wish Mr. Gray would let us go ‘on our own,’” Nicky said wistfully.
“He feels that there are a lot of holes in Henry’s story,” said Cliff. “We looked at the trail, and how any half dozen burros and their load of gold could get away in ten minutes is more than he can understand. And, if he was ‘fired’ from the mine, why is he there?”
“Those things are easy to explain, I think,” Tom stated. “About the burros—I asked him and he said he guessed his former friend must have unloaded them and dropped the gold sacks over the cliffs or into some hole and covered it up and turned the burros loose, or drove them into the chasm up the trail. He came to work at the mine again when the new superintendent was employed there, and that was natural because the new man did not know him or his record.”
“That makes it sound better, but there are still funny points,” Cliff replied.