"I don't know nothin' about gas tanks," said the old man. "But more than once I've warned you men about——"
What the warning was he did not get a chance to explain, for at that moment Professor Dodson, the mine expert, with his assistant, Professor Snath, emerged from the interior of the cave, into whose black depths they had disappeared some time ago, while Bud and the others were talking.
"By golly!" exclaimed Billee, suddenly changing the subject. "They got their report ready pretty quick. I reckon the gold's so thick in there they don't need to make much of a test. Whoopee! I'll soon have my self-playin' piano!" He was as eager and excited as a boy. Indeed Bud and his cousins were not a little excited as they looked at the two scientists who came out carrying specimens of ore which they had knocked off the walls of the cave with their peculiar hammers.
"Didn't take you long," commented Bud.
"No, this was an easy problem," answered Professor Dodson. "We don't even need an assay to determine our findings."
"By golly! What do you know about that?" cried Billee. "About how many dollars will she run to the ton?" he asked. "I only want to know about," he stipulated. "I won't pin you down by five or ten dollars, 'cause I think that wouldn't be fair. But roughly about how much do you think our mine will assay to the ton?"
"How much what?" asked Professor Dodson with a peculiar smile. "How much what to the ton?"
"How much gold, of course!" exclaimed Billee. "What else? Gold's what we want; ain't it?" and he chuckled as he turned to his friends.
"Sure—gold!" was the murmur.
"Then I'm sorry to have to tell you that there is not one ounce of gold in any number of tons of ore and rock in that cave!" was the unexpected and startling answer. "There isn't any gold at all."