Cliff’s mystery, as Nicky said, had been cleared up in the summer past: the following winter the trio, while in Jamaica, had run onto some information which had begun the adventure through which the hidden treasure mystery of Nicky’s family had been brought to a successful end.
While in Cliff’s case the reward had not been financially large, he had found his father. In Nicky’s adventure no life had been involved in danger, but a buried mass of gold bars had been recovered and distributed fairly so that each of the three was, in a modest way, provided for as far as riches went: they were not made millionaires, because the treasure had to be shared with others involved in Captain Kidd’s legacy, but they were “well fixed.”
But in Tom’s case, the mystery was of a different kind, and there was in it not only the element of tragedy, but, as well, the element of uncertainty.
Hardly more than five years ago Tom, confined to his bed by a bad attack of measles, had been thus prevented from going with his father and his sister, a year older than he, to Mexico. That saved his life, which is a curious thing to think about—that sickness saved him from a worse fate.
Mr. Carrol, an engineer and mining expert, sent to inspect some mining property, had left Tom under the care of an older cousin; but so eager had eleven-year-old Margery been to see the strange country that Mr. Carrol had taken her with him.
That farewell, looking out of a darkened room at the bright hair and half-smiling, half-tearful face, had been Tom’s last sight of his beloved sister; and that clasp of hands between father and son had been the last they could ever exchange.
For, shortly after the arrival of the engineer and his daughter at a remote mining property, bandits had descended from the mountains in a raid, seemingly because they knew that gold to a high value had been amassed and stored until time to load it on burros and with armed guards take it to the railway shipping point.
In the news, meagre and disjointed, which Tom had received, it was supposed that the bandits had come to the mine during the night, had been seen and attacked by the engineer and several other Americans who were in charge of the property. A fight must have ensued, but one disastrous to the defenders, because the gold was gone and the mine was deserted when the workmen came from their hovels far down the trail the next day. According to what Tom heard, they had found his father and the other Americans, all past any earthly aid.
But there had been no news of Margery!
With his heart torn by his bereavement and with terror gnawing at his mind day and night, even at the tender age of ten, Tom had begged his father’s cousin to use every effort to learn what had happened to his sister. All that could be done, had been done.