"We won't let nobody come near it until you come back!" promised the older boy.
"I got my baseball bat if they do!" chimed in his brother.
Stopping for an ice-cream soda in the only store of the town that dispensed this refreshment and having bought a paper, Ned and Tom lingered a while to listen to the somewhat excited and loud talk that was going on amid a crowd of men in the place, evidently the headquarters of the village gossips.
"And they got clean away!" one man declared. "Took every darn cent, too!"
"Did they hurt the guards?" asked another.
"Shot at 'em, but missed. It was all over quick."
"Didn't they see which way the robbers went?" some one wanted to know.
"Off toward Dismal Mountain," another answered.
"Might have known it!" commented several. "That place ought to be wiped out."
"This sounds interesting," remarked Tom to Ned in a low voice. "I'm going to butt in."