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[Illustration: THEY RODE OVER IN FRONT OF THE CAVE.]




                           THE MOTOR BOYS ON
                           THUNDER MOUNTAIN

                                  Or

                    The Treasure Chest of Blue Rock

                                  BY
                            CLARENCE YOUNG

             AUTHOR OF “THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES,” “THE JACK
                         RANGER SERIES,” ETC.


                              ILLUSTRATED


                               NEW YORK
                        CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




BOOKS BY CLARENCE YOUNG

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.


=THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES=

  THE MOTOR BOYS
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVERLAND
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN MEXICO
  THE MOTOR BOYS ACROSS THE PLAINS
  THE MOTOR BOYS AFLOAT
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN STRANGE WATERS
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE PACIFIC
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE CLOUDS
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE ROCKIES
  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE OCEAN
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE WING
  THE MOTOR BOYS AFTER A FORTUNE
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE BORDER
  THE MOTOR BOYS UNDER THE SEA
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER
  THE MOTOR BOYS AT BOXWOOD HALL
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON A RANCH
  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE ARMY
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE
  THE MOTOR BOYS BOUND FOR HOME
  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN


=THE JACK RANGER SERIES=

  JACK RANGER’S SCHOOLDAYS
  JACK RANGER’S WESTERN TRIP
  JACK RANGER’S SCHOOL VICTORIES
  JACK RANGER’S OCEAN CRUISE
  JACK RANGER’S GUN CLUB
  JACK RANGER’S TREASURE BOX


                          COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
                        CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

                  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN

                                                    Printed in U. S. A.




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                             PAGE
      I. GOLD MINE TALK                 1
     II. THE END OF EVERYTHING         11
    III. NODDY NIXON’S THREAT          22
     IV. OVER THE CLIFF                31
      V. VAIN REGRETS                  38
     VI. LAYING A PLOT                 49
    VII. IN THE BARN                   56
   VIII. A CRASH                       65
     IX. THE FAT MAN                   74
      X. THE SECOND SECTION            83
     XI. ON THE TRAIL                  92
    XII. TINNY’S SHACK                 99
   XIII. ECHO CANYON                  107
    XIV. DOWN A HOLE                  117
     XV. YELLOW EYES                  124
    XVI. A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE      133
   XVII. SEARCHING                    142
  XVIII. STRANGE NOISES               149
    XIX. THE PROFESSOR’S STORY        157
     XX. THE POSSE                    166
    XXI. AN AVALANCHE                 171
   XXII. IN THE WILDERNESS            180
  XXIII. AN ESCAPE                    188
   XXIV. THUNDER MOUNTAIN             197
    XXV. THE STORM                    206
   XXVI. A BLUE ROCK SLIDE            213
  XXVII. IN DIRE PERIL                220
 XXVIII. A DISCOVERY                  228
   XXIX. TO THE RESCUE                234
    XXX. PAY DIRT                     241




THE MOTOR BOYS ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN




CHAPTER I

GOLD MINE TALK


“What do you think of it, fellows?” asked Jerry Hopkins. The tall lad
ruffled in his hand some sheets of paper covered with typewriting. He
looked closely at his two chums.

“You mean Tinny Mallison’s gold mine proposition?” inquired Ned Slade,
flicking a bit of dust from the trousers of his new suit.

“That’s what I mean,” replied Jerry. “He didn’t say anything else in
his letter worth considering, did he?” and the tall lad again referred
to the screed.

“Except about chicken,” put in the third member of the trio, a stout,
good-natured looking lad with a beaming face.

“Chicken? What do you mean--chicken?” demanded Ned Slade, with just a
slight note of impatience in his voice. Jerry, looking hastily through
the letter, added:

“Tinny didn’t say anything about going into the chicken business, did
he? Not that I remember. Anyhow, he isn’t in a chicken-raising country.
He’s out in the tall timber where the only things they raise are Rocky
Mountain goats. Chickens! How do you get that way, Chunky?”

The fat lad flushed, having drawn this much attention to himself, and,
to justify his remark, he said:

“I didn’t mean it that way. You know, as well as I do, he didn’t
propose to us to go out there to raise _chickens_. We could do that
here at home a lot better.”

“Just what do you mean by harping on fowls?” asked Ned.

“I mean Tinny said in his letter that he was in a restaurant where they
served him roast chicken and mushrooms, and he got to thinking of us
and----”

“You mean he got to thinking of _you_!” and Ned exploded into a laugh,
at which Bob Baker blushed a deeper pink.

“Oh, I see what Chunky means!” chuckled Jerry. “Tinny did speak of
being in a restaurant eating chicken when he found himself remembering
us and the measly feeds we sometimes got in the mustering-out camp.
That’s what caused him to write us about the gold mine.”

“And you can make up your mind that Bob would pick out that part of
the letter first!” exclaimed Ned. “That part about chicken! Did it make
you hungry, Chunky?” he demanded, giving the stout youth a poke in his
well-covered ribs.

“Oh, cut it out!” snapped Bob, with a trace of annoyance on his face.
“I was up early and I didn’t have much breakfast. It’s nearly noon now,
and if you want me to give any serious consideration to this gold mine
proposition I’ve got to eat--that’s all!”

There was such a tone of resolve in the stout lad’s voice, and such an
air of bravado about him, that Ned and Jerry looked at each other in
surprise.

“Well, Bob, if that’s the way you feel about it,” began Ned, “we might
as well----”

“That’s how I feel about it!” cracked out Bob. “I’m hungry--I don’t
care who knows it! Ever since Jerry read that in the letter about Tinny
having such a glorious feed of roast chicken and mushrooms--oh, boy!”

Bob did not go on, but Jerry, looking at his watch, remarked:

“It is almost noon, and I happen to know Bob was up early, for I
telephoned over just before I ate breakfast and they said he’d gone out
in a hurry.”

“I did. And I had nothing for breakfast but some slices of toast, bacon
and eggs, and coffee,” broke in Bob. “No breakfast at all! Had to go
down on an errand in a hurry for dad in the new car, and I stepped on
the gas, let me tell you. Now, what about eating?” he asked eagerly.

“Well, don’t go to sleep, and I’ll go on with my speech of acceptance,”
chuckled Jerry. “I was going to say, why not come to lunch at my house?
Then we can talk over this gold mine dope.”

“Suits me,” said Ned briefly.

“It more than hits me in the right spot,” sighed fat Bob Baker.

“But it’s queer,” murmured Jerry, as he and his chums arose from a
bench where they had been sitting on the edge of Cresville’s only
park--the place designated as a meeting place when Jerry had received a
letter which was destined to play a momentous part in the lives of the
Motor Boys.

“What’s queer?” Ned Slade wanted to know.

“How Bob happened to pick out the three lines in Tinny’s letter that
had to do with eating,” Jerry resumed. “The most unimportant part of
the whole business, and yet Bob spots it like--like----”

“Like a hawk after a chicken,” supplied Ned, when he saw his tall chum
at a loss for a simile.

“Thanks,” murmured Jerry.

“Think you’re a regular moving-picture-art-title writer, don’t you?”
mumbled Bob. “All right--go on--poke all the fun you want. But if you
fellows get out to Thunder Mountain--or whatever the place is--and
starve to death, don’t blame me.”

“We aren’t likely to--not if we die of hunger,” said Ned. “But if we
go, won’t you come with us?”

“I don’t know--maybe.” Bob was not quite restored to his usual
good-natured self after the bantering to which he had been subjected.

“Well, let’s go!” cried Jerry, and the words recalled vividly to the
minds of his chums how often those same words were used when they were
in France during the World War.

“Is that you, Jerry?” called Mrs. Hopkins, when a little later she
heard the tramp of feet in her hall--feet that unconsciously fell into
the swing of a military march.

“Yes, Mother. I’ve brought Ned and Bob home to lunch.”

“That’s nice. I’ll tell Katie to get things ready for you out in the
sun parlor. John is polishing the dining room floor.”

“Anywhere as long as there’s something to eat,” murmured Bob.

And then, a little later, when the Motor Boys were sitting about a
well laden table in the pleasant sun parlor of the Hopkins home, their
discussion turned upon the letter Jerry had received that morning from
Tinnith Mallison, a Westerner, whom they had first met as a congenial
officer in the training camp where the lads were mustered out of Uncle
Sam’s service.

“Just what is his proposition?” asked Bob, who, having the first sharp
edge taken from his appetite, could now give more consideration to
other matters. “I didn’t listen very closely when you first read it,
Jerry.”

“No, I reckon not--chicken and mushrooms,” murmured Ned.

“Shut up!” ordered Bob, but the words were accompanied by a smile which
took all malice from them.

“Well, briefly, Tinny’s proposition is this,” said Jerry, as he took
out the letter again. They had become sufficiently acquainted with Mr.
Mallison to call him by his nickname. “He wants to interest us in an
undeveloped gold mine out West near a place called Thunder Mountain.
Why it has that name, I don’t know. Maybe the Indians called it that.”

“If we go out there we can find out why,” put in Ned.

“Say, are you fellows really seriously considering taking up this
game?” demanded Bob, pausing with a bite of pie half way to his mouth.
And when Bob did any pausing in the process of eating one might safely
conclude that he was vitally interested in the subject under discussion.

“Well, I’m about as green at the gold-mining business as I would be
trying to cut ice with a pair of manicure scissors,” remarked Jerry.
“But, fellows, we’ve just got to do something strenuous! After the
exciting life we lived in France, I just can’t settle down to any
business that we can tackle in this town. And as for going back to
Boxwood Hall----”

“Whew! Don’t speak of it!” cried Ned. “Jerry, I’m with you on that
gold mine proposition,” he continued. “I don’t just sense what it is
all about, but I’ll leave that to you. Anyhow, I can’t stay around
this town much longer. It’s all right in its own way, but it doesn’t
weigh much after what we’ve gone through. Dad wants me to come in the
department store and learn the business from the ground up. But I’m not
ready for that yet. That’s why I want to go West.”

“And I can’t see dad’s proposition to become office boy in the bank and
work my way up to be a cashier,” said Bob. “Of course I’ll go in the
bank some day--but not just yet. I’m for the West.”

“Well, we seem to be pretty much of the same mind about it, and that
sounds good to me,” commented Jerry. “Tinny says he will write us more
particulars if we are interested, and suggests that we let him know at
once.”

“Tell him we are!” exclaimed Ned. “We’ve just got to get into something
that will keep us out in the open air. This gold mine would do it.”

“Whether it had any gold in it or not,” commented Jerry.

“Sure! Say, why don’t you send Tinny a wire, telling him we’re hot on
his trail and ask him to send on more dope.”

“I’ll do it!” decided Jerry.

“Write out the message,” suggested Bob. “Then we’ll go down to the
telegraph office to send it. I’ll get dad’s new car and we’ll try it
out. He told me to run it for a while and remove the kinks.”

“Hurray!” yelled Ned.

“Sounds good to me,” commented Jerry. In fact, ever since he had heard
that Mr. Baker had a new car his hands had been itching to grip the
wheel. Now he might have an opportunity.

“Come on, we’ll get the car,” cried Chunky. “After we leave the message
we’ll go for a ride.”

“It will be like old times,” remarked Ned, for the lads had gained more
than a local reputation by their journeys about the country in motors.

Finishing their lunch, putting away Tinny’s enthralling letter, and
writing the telegram to the Westerner did not take long. A little later
the three youths were walking about and admiring Mr. Baker’s new car.
It was a beauty--no mistake about that.

“How do you think the new four-wheel brakes will work?” asked Jerry,
who knew something about cars. He had one, but not of a late model.

“You’ll soon find out,” remarked Bob. “I’ll let you fellows have a shot
at it. Only remember one thing--don’t shove the brakes on too suddenly,
for they grip twice as quickly as the old kind. Hop in--I’ll be out in
a minute.”

He disappeared into the house on the run, while Ned and Jerry took
their places on the front seat. Did any one ever see three lads ride
anywhere but on the front seat of an auto, no matter how small?

“It’ll be a tight fit with Chunky in,” remarked Ned, looking at the
space behind the wheel.

“Do him good to squeeze him,” chuckled Jerry. “Here he comes.”

Bob did not complain of the small space left for him at the wheel, but
climbed in and the three lads were soon riding down the main street of
Cresville, their home town.

The message was sent, and then Bob headed the car for the open
country. They were bowling along, the fat lad having given several
demonstrations of how to apply the new brakes, when he took one hand
from the steering wheel and began fishing in his pocket.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jerry.

Bob did not answer, but pulled out a doughnut and began munching on it.

“Well, for the love of pepsin!” cried Ned. “If you aren’t----”

He never finished the sentence, for just then the car rounded a curve
in the road and Jerry, pointing ahead, cried:

“Look! There’s a house on fire!”

In pointing he jarred Bob’s hand just as the latter was raising the
doughnut for another bite.

“It sure is a fire!” shouted Ned.

“Ug! Ow! Huh! Huh! Heck!” coughed and spluttered Bob.

“What’s the matter?” cried Jerry.

“You--er--guk--made me swallow that--dough--nut the--heck--wrong way!”
gasped Bob. “Ugh!”

He pushed suddenly on the brake pedal and the car came to such an
abrupt stop that he and his companions nearly went through the
windshield as the auto halted within a short distance of the blazing
farmhouse from which came frantic cries for help.




CHAPTER II

THE END OF EVERYTHING


“Come on, fellows!” cried Jerry.

He was struggling to get out of the seat where three of them were
rather a tight fit, considering Chunky’s plumpness. But Jerry managed
it, at the same time thumping Bob on the back to dislodge the bit of
doughnut that had gone down the hungry lad’s “wrong throat.”

The boys had arrived at a most critical time. The blaze had quite a
start at the rear of the farmhouse, the flames flickering out of a
first story window--evidently the kitchen--and eating their way up to
the second story.

“I wonder if they’ve telephoned in an alarm?” cried Ned, for though
there were no “pull boxes” on the country road that far out of
Cresville, nearly every farmer had a telephone.

“Sounds like the new motor engine coming,” said Bob, with a cough, to
dislodge the last remaining particles of the doughnut, which, by this
time, he had managed to swallow.

“Yes, there she is!” added Ned, as they caught the sound of the siren
horn on the new motor apparatus, recently purchased by the town.

“But it won’t get here in time to save them! Look!” shouted Jerry.

He pointed to a window about eight feet above the one-story extension
of the house where could be seen a woman and two children. From another
window on the left of these frantic and screaming ones smoke was
pouring, showing that the fire was close to them.

“We’ve got to save them!” cried Ned.

“That’s right!” added Bob. “We can do it from that low roof. They can
drop down and we can help them get to the ground. Or if we could find a
short ladder----”

“There’s one!” yelled Ned, pointing to one leaning against a fruit tree
at the side of the house. “Come on!”

“We’re just in time!” added Jerry. “It’s a good thing we drove out this
way!”

The boys dashed to the rescue of the fire-trapped ones, while they
could hear the motor engine approaching; and as they watched neighbors
came running across the fields to aid, having seen the pall of smoke.

While the Motor Boys are hastening on their errand of mercy I shall
take just a moment to introduce my new readers more formally to the
youths who are to be the heroes of this story.

In the first volume of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys,” the
reason for this name being given Jerry Hopkins, Ned Slade and Bob Baker
was very fully set forth. Ned Slade’s father was a wealthy department
store owner in Cresville, and Bob Baker’s father was president of the
richest bank in that section. Jerry Hopkins’ father was dead, but had
left his widow, Mrs. Julia Hopkins, very well off, and Jerry managed to
keep up his end with his two chums.

Jerry, the tallest of the three lads, was a rather quiet and thoughtful
youth, destined to be a leader. Ned was the best dresser of the three,
if that is any compliment, and Bob Baker--well, when it is said that
his nickname was “Chunky,” more has been told than could be divulged in
several pages. Of his appetite, sufficient testimony has been given.

The home of the Motor Boys was in Cresville, in one of the New England
states, but from there the boys had traveled to many other parts of
their own country and foreign lands. As you know, they had recently
come back from the great war.

But before this, when they were not circumventing tricks of the
notorious Noddy Nixon and his crony, Jack Pender, the boys had traveled
overland, to Mexico, and across the great plains in a motor car. They
had been afloat on the Atlantic and in strange waters, voyaging at
times in a motor boat, and the various volumes tell of their activities.

As if the earth was not wide enough for them, the lads had even
ventured into the clouds in aeroplanes and balloons, and when they had
a chance to go in a submarine they did not hesitate. Part of their time
they spent at school--Boxwood Hall--but after the war they had voted
unanimously that they could not take up their quiet studies again; at
least, not at once.

The volume immediately preceding this present one is entitled “The
Motor Boys Bound for Home; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked
Troopship.” They had some strenuous times, in part with their old
friend, Professor Snodgrass, and they had not long been at home when
the letter came from their officer friend, written from his western
mining camp.

However, all thoughts of gold mines were now driven from the heads of
the lads as they saw the immediate necessity of quick action if they
were to save the woman and the two children now appealing for help in
the burning farmhouse.

“Get the ladder!” cried Jerry. “We can easily help them down to the
roof of that one-story extension. Then they can jump to the ground if
they have to.”

“They won’t have to--we can move the ladder!” shouted Ned, as he dashed
for it.

“Help us! Save us!” screamed the woman.

“We’re coming! Don’t jump!” warned Jerry.

Being tall and athletic, he had managed, with the aid of a drain pipe
and clinging vine, to scramble up to the flat roof of the one-story
extension before the ladder was brought up. Ned could do the same, but
Bob was too fat. He had to ascend by the ladder. However, after he was
on the roof, he helped pull the ladder up so that it could be raised to
the window.

The house appeared to be on fire in the vicinity of the kitchen, and
the boys guessed that the woman and girls had been cut off from the
front and back stairs.

While the motor engine was chugging its way nearer and while friends
and neighbors were gathering to do what they could, the ladder, now on
the roof of the extension, was raised to the window at which the three
stood frantically calling.

“We’ll get you down in a minute!” shouted Jerry encouragingly, as he
ran up the ladder, which was steadied at its foot by Ned and Bob. “Come
on!” he cried to the youngest girl, who was crying.

“I--I’m afraid!” she sobbed, leaning out of the window.

“You needn’t be,” Jerry assured her. “I won’t let you fall.”

“Go on with him, Mary!” urged her mother. “Then take Helen next. And
there’s a lame man in here.”

“We’ll get you all out,” declared Jerry, with more confidence when he
had looked through the window and saw no flames in the room behind the
three. “You’ve got plenty of time.”

He helped the two girls down to the flat roof of the one-story
extension, where Ned and Bob took charge of them, calming them and
telling them they would soon be on the ground.

“Can you save Mr. Cromley?” gasped the woman, when Jerry went back to
assist her. “He’s lame and he’s in that room where the smoke is. The
girls and I were up there talking to him when the fire broke out.”

“I’ll get him as soon as you get down,” cried Jerry. “How lame is he?
Will he have to be carried?”

“Oh, no, he just walks with a limp--that’s all.”

“Then I guess I can get him down the ladder. But you must come now,”
and the mother was soon on the low roof. “I’m going after the lame man,
fellows!” Jerry then called to his chums. “Keep the ladder here until I
get him to the window.”

“Corporal” Jerry Hopkins was giving orders as he had done on the
battlefields of France, and his chums “snapped into” obedience as they
had done in those terrible days.

Up the ladder the tall lad raced, to meet a limping man stumbling
toward the window from which Jerry had already assisted the woman and
girls to the roof.

“I--I must have swallowed some of the smoke!” the man coughed. “I
didn’t know where I was for a minute!”

“Can you get down the ladder if I help you?” asked Jerry, entering the
room.

“Sure! I’m not as helpless as all that, even if I have a game leg. I’m
spry yet! Where’s the ladder? Is the whole house afire?”

“No, only part of it. I think they’ll save most of it. Here’s the
ladder,” and Jerry led the man to the window, for now a cloud of smoke
blew into the room, making them both cough and obscuring their vision
for a moment.

Mr. Cromley, to give him the name mentioned by the woman, proved that
he was no weakling in spite of his age and lameness, and he went down
the ladder almost as spryly as did Jerry.

“Oh, Uncle Bill, I’m so glad you’re saved!” cried one of the girls.

“But we aren’t on the ground yet!” sobbed her sister.

“You soon will be,” said Bob. “Come on, let’s move the ladder!” he
cried.

“Any more up there?” asked Jerry, pointing to the window from which
smoke was now pouring more thickly.

“No, we’re all out!” answered the woman.

It was but the work of a few seconds to shove the ladder over the edge
of the low roof, and down it the rescued ones, including the lame man
and the Motor Boys, soon made their way to the ground.

By this time the fire apparatus had arrived and with it many men and
boys to help. In addition to the chemical stream turned into the
blazing kitchen, volunteers dashed on the flames as many pails of water
as they could.

So quick and efficient was the work that the fire was confined to one
wing of the house and it was out in half an hour, the kitchen being
about the only room burned, though all through the place was the smell
and black soot of the smoke.

“My kettle of lard that I was heating to fry doughnuts must have boiled
over,” explained the woman--a Mrs. Gordon--when something like calmness
had been restored. “I left the grease boiling for a minute while I ran
upstairs to see if my brother wanted anything,” and she nodded toward
Mr. Cromley. “All of a sudden I heard a sort of explosion, and when I
tried to get down the stairs I couldn’t. The girls were up in their
room, and they ran back to where brother Bill and I were, and so we
were all trapped. If you boys hadn’t come along when you did we might
all have been burned to death,” she concluded.

“Oh, I guess some one else would have saved you,” said Jerry. “The
alarm got in quickly enough, anyhow.”

“Yes, we have an extension telephone upstairs, and I called from
there,” explained Mrs. Gordon. “But I didn’t see how we were going to
get out in time.”

“Well, it’s all right now,” said Bill Cromley, limping about to inspect
the damage done. It was not as much as seemed at first, though it was
bad enough.

“My husband will feel terrible when he comes home and sees that I can’t
cook a meal,” sighed Mrs. Gordon.

“You can use my kitchen,” offered one neighbor kindly.

“And mine! And mine!” came other proffers.

While plans were being made to help the Gordon family, Bill Cromley
moved about, limping painfully, and, speaking to the Motor Boys, he
said:

“Seems like it’s one accident after another with me. Guess I must have
run into a streak of bad luck.”

“Why, what else happened?” asked Ned.

“Well, just before I came away from the West I was in a sort of
premature explosion and got this game foot. Then I come to visit my
sister and her house catches fire.”

“Are you from the West?” asked Jerry, thinking of Tinny’s letter.

“Yes, I’m a gold miner out there, or I was. Why? Are you fellows from
the West?” Bill Cromley inquired as he saw looks of interest on the
boys’ faces.

“We’ve been out there,” admitted Bob. “And we may go again. We’ve got
an offer to help develop a mine at a place called Thunder Mountain----”

Before Ned or Jerry could offer any objection to the stout lad blurting
out this rather personal information, Bill Cromley exclaimed:

“Thunder Mountain! Why, I know where that is!”

“Any gold there?” Ned wanted to know.

“Sure there is--if you can find it. It’s in Montana, and Montana is a
good gold region. I’ve panned out some pretty good stuff there myself.
Course, it wasn’t anything like Blue Rock.”

“What’s Blue Rock?” asked Bob. “That’s the kind of soil they find
diamonds in, isn’t it?”

“You’re thinking of Africa,” remarked Jerry.

“Blue Rock is the name of a mine,” resumed Bill Cromley. “I never got
a chance at it, but some lucky fellows did, and they took out a whole
chest full of gold. But, no--I won’t call them lucky,” he added, with a
shake of his head.

“Why not?” inquired Ned.

“Because of what happened to ’em,” and Bill Cromley shook his head
dolefully.

“What happened?” demanded Jerry.

“The worst that could happen to anybody. They lost their lives, and the
gold, too. The miners had about cleaned out the mine--taken a fortune
in gold from it. They packed it in a chest and set out for the East,
putting the chest of gold on a stage coach.

“But the stage horses ran away on the worst part of the trail, the
coach was upset and went over a cliff, horses, driver, passengers,
chest of gold and all. It was just the end of everything!”




CHAPTER III

NODDY NIXON’S THREAT


Bill Cromley, the old gold miner, abruptly ceased his narration. The
scene was rather quieter about the farmhouse now, though the neighbors
were still at the farm helping Mrs. Gordon to move out of the kitchen
some things that had been saved. The Motor Boys were much interested in
what they had heard.

“What do you mean--it was the end of everything?” asked Jerry.

“Just what I say. It was the end,” replied Cromley. “The horses, stage,
chest of gold, and everything went over the cliff. According to what
you tell me, it can’t have been far from where you’re going--to Thunder
Mountain.”

“Didn’t they save anything?” asked Bob, a little awed by the tragic
ending of the story.

“Nary a thing.”

“Wasn’t there any trace of the men or the horses or the stage?”
inquired Ned.

“Oh, yes, they found the bodies--some of ’em,” said the miner. “And
the horses, too. But there wasn’t much left of the coach. It was a
rickety old thing to start with, and about all they picked up was some
splinters that would do for toothpicks.”

“But the chest of gold?” exclaimed Bob.

“They never found a trace of it,” answered the miner. “It was never
located, though I had more than one look for it, and so did lots of
others. There was a fortune of pure gold in that chest, and it was a
pity to lose it. But we never found it.”

“But what could have become of it?” demanded Jerry. “A big chest having
rolled down the side of a mountain, must have landed somewhere.”

“It very likely did,” answered Mr. Cromley. “Landed down in some hole
or gully. But there are so many of them in that part of the country you
might hunt for five years and never strike the right one. It’s a wild
bit of territory out there near Blue Rock. Thunder Mountain is another
wild region. Let’s see, what did you say the name of your mining friend
was out there--Brassy Madison?”

“No, Tinny Mallison,” replied Jerry. “His real name is Tinnith, but we
call him Tinny.”

“Um! Good name for a gold miner,” commented the lame man. “He’ll very
likely strike tin instead of gold nine times out of ten. No, I never
heard of him.”

“He hasn’t been mining very long,” explained Ned. “He just got back
from the war--same as we did.”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back West to the mines?” asked Bob, as
the boys moved on toward their car, for there was little now that they
could do. On all sides could be heard murmurs of admiration over their
promptness in saving the lives of the imperiled ones.

“Oh, yes, I reckon so,” was the answer. “Once you get to be as old as I
am it’s hard to give up the gold-mining craze. I reckon I’ll go back.
In fact, my sister and I were talking about my going back when this
fire happened. Of course I’m going to stay now until I see if I can
help them. But I’ll go back before the summer’s over.”

“Maybe we’ll see you when we get to Thunder Mountain,” suggested Jerry.

“And if the place where that chest of gold was lost is anywhere near
Tinny’s mine, we might have a look for it,” remarked Bob.

“Better not count on that! You’ll only be disappointed. Of course I can
show you the spot where the coach went over the cliff, but there’s no
use looking for the gold. It was just the end of everything!”

The boys let it go at that for the time being. And, truth to tell,
they did not have a chance to consider it any further just then, for
there came a sudden interruption to their thoughts in the shape of
a small but very excited lad who had driven to the scene of the fire
in a rattling little car. Out he sprang, jumping over the fence, and,
approaching the Motor Boys, he gasped:

“Say--why didn’t you stop for me--I like fires--I could help put ’em
out--good on ladder work--anybody killed--say there’ll be a piece in
the paper about this--how’d it start--were any of you burned--somebody
said a woman jumped from a window--has the engine stopped----”

“Yes, and you’d better stop, Andy Rush, if you don’t want to blow up!”
laughed Jerry, as he gently placed a hand over the small lad’s mouth,
thereby preventing the further outflow of words that came bubbling out,
fairly tripping each other up, so excited was Andy.

He was an old friend of the trio of lads who had had so many adventures
together, and more than once Andy had accompanied them. He was a good
little chap, true and stanch, but he had a habit of getting excited
easily, and, when he did, he talked so fast and so brokenly that his
conversation was all dots and dashes--mostly dashes.

“Oh--fire’s all out, is it--too bad--wish I’d gotten here sooner!”
exclaimed Andy, in disappointed tones. “I hurried all I could--after I
heard about it--jumped into Bachman’s flivver--had a puncture--didn’t
stop--came right along--here I am--whoop!”

“Do you mean to say you took the butcher’s auto?” asked Ned, as he
noted what car the small lad had.

“Sure! It was standing in front of his shop. He wasn’t using it--so I
hopped in--he won’t care--we get our meat of him, anyhow. I’ll have
the puncture fixed--maybe I can do it myself--you’ve got your dad’s
new car, haven’t you, Bob? Maybe you have a tire repair outfit--come
on--give me a hand--gee, but I’m sorry the fire’s out!”

“Guess you’re the only one that’s sorry,” remarked Bob. “Come on,
fellows, we’ll help Andy mend his puncture,” he added good-naturedly.
“Bachman will put a flea in his ear if he doesn’t come back with the
flivver in time for afternoon deliveries.”

“Thanks--do as much for you some day--I’ll get the tire off!”
spluttered Andy, leaping back over the fence. “You don’t think the
fire’ll start up again, do you?” he asked. “If it does I’d like to
climb a ladder--jump in a window--slide down a rope--run----”

“Oh, cut it out!” laughed Ned. “You’ll have us doing it next.”

From his tool box Bob got an emergency tire repair kit, and after the
little car belonging to the town butcher had been jacked up, Andy
began the not too-easy task of taking off the punctured tire. He had
run on it flat to the fire.

“Say, jufellers hear about Noddy Nixon?” asked Andy, while he was
waiting for the cement to dry somewhat before putting a patch on the
inner tube.

“No, what about that--rat?” asked Ned.

“He’s back in town--that’s all,” was Andy’s information. “Just saw him
and Jack Pender get off the train.”

“So Jack’s with him, is he?” asked Jerry.

“Guess Noddy didn’t dare come back alone,” commented Bob. “He needs
some one to back him up.”

“I should think he would after what he did in France,” said Jerry
bitterly. “Shooting himself to make believe he was wounded in action,
so he could be sent to the rear! There isn’t any place too hot for such
rats!”

“Did Noddy say anything to you, Andy?” asked Ned, as the tire was being
put back on the wheel.

“Nope! Never talks to me--guess he doesn’t like me--thinks I’m too much
of a runt, I guess. He’s laying for you fellers.”

“What do you mean--laying for us?” demanded Jerry.

“Oh, nothing special, but I mean he was always picking on you, wasn’t
he?”

“That’s right,” admitted Bob Baker. “But he’d better not try it any
more. I’ll tell him where he gets off.”

“The same here,” echoed Ned.

The puncture having been repaired, Andy hastened back in the small car
he had so unceremoniously borrowed to go to the fire.

“See you later,” he called. “Watch out for Noddy--bad egg--Jack
Pender, too--don’t tell Bachman I had a puncture--what he doesn’t
know won’t hurt him--anyhow, it’s mended--maybe there’ll be another
fire this afternoon--give me a ride in your new car, Bob--see you
later--good-by--whoop!”

“Thank goodness, he’s gone!” murmured Jerry, as he and his chums
entered the big machine, having said good-by to those whom they had
helped.

Bill Cromley waved to the boys as he limped about helping his sister
salvage things from the burned kitchen.

“Come and see me again before you start for Thunder Mountain,” he
urged, and the boys promised.

The three rode about a bit and then started for town. It was just their
luck, as Ned said later, to meet Noddy Nixon and his crony.

Jerry was trying his hand on the new car when, as he swung around
a corner, he had to jam on quickly the four-wheel brakes to avoid
running down two young men who suddenly, and without looking to see if
the way was clear, stepped from the curb.

“Say, you boob, what’s the idea?” angrily demanded one of the
pedestrians. It was Noddy Nixon.

“Think you own the whole street just because you have a new car?”
sneered Jack Pender.

When the two cronies saw who it was that had so nearly run them down,
Noddy’s face grew red with anger.

“Say you--you!” he spluttered, unable, for rage, to proceed.

“Why don’t you look where you’re going when you start to cross a
street?” demanded Jerry.

“Don’t give me any of your talk!” fairly shouted Noddy, shaking his
fist at the Motor Boys. “I’m going to have a settlement with you
fellows--that’s what I’m going to do!”

“A settlement? You don’t owe us anything, Noddy,” said Ned easily and
with a mocking smile.

“Yes, I do!” stormed the bully. “You’ve gone about telling everybody I
shot myself on purpose in France. I didn’t at all. It’s untrue.”

“Is it?” asked Jerry coolly. “Then you’d better take it up with the war
department. They put S.I.W., meaning self-inflicted wound, up over
your cot--we didn’t!”

“It’s not so! It’s untrue!” shouted Noddy. “I’ll fix you for it, too!
And for trying to run me down just because you have a new car!”

“Drive on, Jerry,” advised Ned, in a low voice.

“There’s a crowd collecting,” added Bob.

Jerry let in the clutch, having shifted to first, and the auto drew
away.

Back on the street corner stood Noddy Nixon and his crony.

“They think they’re mighty smart!” murmured Jack.

“Smart! I’ll show ’em!” muttered Noddy. “I’ll get square for all the
things the Motor Boys have done to me if it takes ten years! I’ll get
square with them, all right!”

Noddy had it firmly fixed in his mind that the Motor Boys had done
their best to spread the news that he had shot himself to keep from
being sent to the front during the war. He felt terribly humiliated
when confronted by the facts and he was ready to do almost anything to
“get square” with the boys, and especially with Jerry.




CHAPTER IV

OVER THE CLIFF


“Well, fellows, what do you think of dad’s new car?” asked Bob of his
chums, when they had finished the ride and were sitting idly in the
machine before dispersing to their several homes.

“Great!” declared Ned. “I wouldn’t mind owning it myself.”

“You got something off your chest that time,” chuckled Jerry. “Those
brakes are a whole lot better than I imagined they could be.”

“They’re all right when you get used to ’em,” agreed Bob, as he felt in
one pocket after another.

“What you looking for?” asked Ned. “Lose something?”

“I thought I had another doughnut left,” answered the stout lad, with a
sigh. “But I guess we ate ’em all up. Never mind.”

“You guess _we_ ate ’em all up!” cried Jerry. “You mean _you_ did!”

For a moment neither of the others spoke, and then Jerry continued:

“I think we ought to take up with Tinny’s offer, if it looks at all
encouraging when we get an answer to our telegram. We may not get to
be millionaires out of the gold mine, but at least it will give us
something to do. And I just can’t settle down to work so soon after the
big fight.”

“That’s the way I feel about it,” added Ned. “I had a little talk with
dad, and while he wants me to come in the store and learn the business,
I’m sure he’ll let me have this summer off. We really need it after
what we’ve gone through.”

“Sure we do!” asserted Bob. “I guess dad will listen to reason when I
tell him I’ve lost about ten pounds.”

“Yes, you have!” scoffed Jerry with a laugh.

“Sure I have!” declared Chunky. “Anyhow, let’s see if we can’t plan it
to get a Western trip.”

“Suits me,” said Ned. “I wonder if, by any chance, we could have a shot
looking for that lost treasure chest of Blue Rock?” he went on.

“Maybe,” said Jerry. “But it’s a pretty long chance, seems to me. If
what Bill Cromley says is true there isn’t much hope in trying to
locate it after all these years, when so many have failed.”

“Well, then, let’s hope that Tinny’s mine will pan out better,”
remarked Bob. “What you fellows going to do to-night?” he asked.

“There’s going to be a moon,” said Jerry. “If you want to take us out
in the new car----”

“Nothing doing, _pos-i-tive-ly_!” exclaimed the fat lad. “Dad is going
to take mother out. But there’s a pretty good movie in town. We might
take that in, and then go down to the telegraph office afterward and
see if any word has come from Tinny.”

“Good idea--we’ll do it!” decided Jerry, and the rest agreed.

It was rather hard to get interested in even a very good moving picture
when the minds of the Motor Boys were so filled with visions of what
might happen if they could make the Western trip. Of course nothing was
definitely settled about this as yet. The matter had been broached to
the respective parents soon after Jerry had received the letter from
the Western miner, but at first only indifference was manifested by
Mrs. Hopkins, Mr. Slade and Mr. Baker.

So it was with no little impatience that the young men waited for the
flashing of the last picture on the screen, after which they hurried
down to the telegraph office, where they had telephoned word to hold
any message that might come for them from the West.

“Nothing doing, boys,” were the words the operator greeted them with as
they entered.

“Guess Tinny has cold feet,” remarked Ned.

“Wait a minute; something’s coming in now,” the operator said, holding
up his hand for silence. He listened a moment to the clicking of the
ticker and then in a low voice said: “Yes, this is for you, Jerry. I’ll
have it ready for you shortly.”

The boys sat down to wait, the silence broken only by the click of the
telegraph sounder and the tap of the typewriter keys as the operator
transcribed the message. It was a long one, and when Jerry read it to
his chums they let out whoops of delight.

Not only did Tinny Mallison assert that there was every chance of his
gold mine at Thunder Mountain proving a big winner, but he strongly
urged the boys to hasten out to share in the good prospects. He added
that he would send letters to their parents giving them every assurance
that it would pay the boys financially and in added health to come out
to Montana.

“This settles it!” declared Jerry. “We’ll go!”

“You said it!” chorused Ned and Bob.

A few days later, following the receipt of other telegrams from
Mallison, the consent of the parents was won and the Motor Boys began
preparations to leave for Thunder Mountain.

“I wish we could go all the way by auto,” said Jerry, when he and
his chums were at his house one afternoon, talking over plans, “but
I reckon it’s too much. My old boat wouldn’t stand the strain. But
we can go part way by car--I’m going to sell mine, anyhow--and take a
train the rest of the way.”

It being out of the question to use Mr. Baker’s new machine for
the trip, a compromise had to be made, and Jerry’s old, but still
serviceable, auto had been selected. As he said, they could sell it
when reaching Chicago, or wherever they decided to take the train.

The matter of what they would carry with them was easily settled, as
it was not the first trip the lads had made across country, and their
experience in France was standing them in good stead.

Letters had been sent to Tinny, in answer to some received by him, and
it only remained now to make the last preparations and then start for
Thunder Mountain.

“And I hope we find it solid gold!” murmured Bob.

“You don’t want much!” laughed Jerry. “What’s up--see something?” he
asked Ned, who had suddenly risen from his chair and was gazing from
the window.

“Yes, I see something, or, rather, somebody,” murmured the department
storekeeper’s son. “I wonder if I’m seeing right, though. Come here,
fellows, and see if you see the same thing I do!”

He pointed toward the figure of a small man hurrying along past Jerry’s
house.

“Isn’t that Professor Snodgrass?” demanded Ned.

“It sure is!” cried Jerry.

“What in the world is he doing here?” Bob wanted to know.

“What does he ever do but chase bugs?” inquired Jerry. “That’s probably
what he’s doing now, and he’s so interested that he forgot to stop
here. Very likely he started out to pay me a visit and it has slipped
his mind.”

“We’d better go after him,” suggested Ned, “or he’ll keep on traveling
until he wears his shoes out. Come on!”

The lads hurried out of Jerry’s house, and started after the odd,
little scientist who had been their instructor at Boxwood Hall. But
Professor Snodgrass made such good time that he was around the corner
and in a side lane before the boys were within hailing distance.

“There he goes!” cried Bob.

“And on the run, too!” added Ned. “He must be after a six cylinder June
bug.”

Indeed, Professor Snodgrass was fairly running now, and it could not
be doubted, from what the boys knew of him, that he was after some
creature to add to his collection of strange bugs.

Suddenly the little man, as if in pursuit of a flying object, turned
quickly to the left, and, as he did so, Ned cried:

“He’d better watch out! That path leads to the edge of the cliff where
they’ve been taking out gravel above Limestone Creek. There’s a sharp
fall there, and there was a slide there last week. It’s dangerous!”

“We’d better call to him,” suggested Jerry. “Hi, there, Professor
Snodgrass!” he shouted, making a megaphone of his hands. “Come back!
Don’t go any farther!”

The boys redoubled their speed after Ned’s warning and, making a turn
in the path, came in view of the little man. All unconscious of his
danger, he was running straight ahead, his hat held out as though to
catch a butterfly.

“Come back! Come back!” cried the Motor Boys.

But the professor, unheeding, ran on, and an instant later had fallen,
disappearing over the edge of a cliff.

“He’s gone!” gasped Bob.

“Come on! Maybe we can save him!” shouted Jerry.




CHAPTER V

VAIN REGRETS


Rushing toward the edge of the cliff, but with due regard for the
danger they knew existed at the abrupt descent, the Motor Boys looked
down the steep side of the place where a construction concern had been
getting out gravel. It was the taking away of this material that had
made a cliff where, previously, there had been but a gradual slope.

Looking down to the bed of Limestone Creek, twenty feet below them, the
boys caught sight of Professor Uriah Snodgrass floundering about in the
water, which was quite deep. The little scientist seemed able to keep
his head above the surface, but that was about all.

“Come on! We’ve got to get down there!” cried Ned.

“Here’s a path,” said Jerry, pointing to one a short distance off to
the side of the spot where Professor Snodgrass had had his abrupt fall.

Slipping, sliding, scrambling, and all but tumbling, the three boys
made their way to the bottom of the cliff and to the edge of the
creek, which really was a small river.

By this time Professor Snodgrass had begun to help himself, having
got back the breath that was knocked from him in his fall, and he was
striking out for shore.

In another instant Jerry had waded in, not stopping to take off any of
his garments, and was pulling the little man to safety.

“Why--bless my soul--why, it’s the Motor Boys!” cried the professor.

“Nobody else!” exclaimed Ned.

“Didn’t you hear us yelling to you to keep away from here?” asked Bob.

“No, Bob, my dear boy, I didn’t hear a thing,” was the answer. “I was
after a very rare specimen of a yellow-winged butterfly. I chased it
to the edge of the cliff and, just as I was reaching out for it, I
noticed, too late, that there was an abrupt descent. I couldn’t help
myself--I went over.”

“Yes, we saw you,” replied Jerry, as he helped the professor to a flat,
raised rock on which he could take a seat. Jerry’s feet were making
queer squidgy sounds caused by the water in his shoes. He was wet to
his arm pits, but the professor had gone in over his head.

“You boys didn’t see anything of that yellow-winged butterfly, did
you?” asked the professor, gazing at the trio through his water-dimmed
spectacles which, fortunately, had not come off. “It had blue spots.”

“No, we didn’t see it,” answered Bob.

“Um! Too bad! I guess it must have gotten away,” said the little
bald-headed man, with a sigh. His hat had come off and was floating
downstream. Ned rescued it with a long stick.

“Better take off some of your things and wring the water out,”
suggested Jerry, as he looked at the little puddle collecting at
the feet of the professor, who sat on the rock. “This is a secluded
place--nobody will see you here. You can strip down to your underwear
and dry your clothes a bit. We can go to my house by a back way and no
one will see us.”

“Oh, do you live around here, Jerry?” asked Professor Snodgrass.

“Why, of course I do--we all live here! This is Cresville!”

“Is this Cresville? Well, I started out for here--I was coming to see
you boys, in fact--but I didn’t know I had reached here. I got off the
train because I saw a very valuable, large red butterfly fluttering
about the station. I caught it, and then I wandered on after that
yellow one. I chased it to the edge of the cliff and----”

“Yes, we saw the rest of what happened,” put in Bob. “But better do as
Jerry says, Professor.”

“I will. Thank you for the suggestion.” The bald-headed little
scientist began taking off his outer garments, and was down to his
underclothing when he suddenly made a jump and cried:

“There it is! I see the yellow butterfly! Lend me a hat, somebody!”

He caught Ned’s from the head of that astonished lad and then,
presenting a most ridiculous sight, Professor Snodgrass raced along the
edge of the stream, following a flitting insect.

“I’ve got it!” he suddenly cried, clapping the hat down over a milkweed
plant, and Ned groaned as he saw the treatment to which his hat was
subjected. “I’ve got it! Jerry, please bring me a specimen box from my
coat. It’s waterproof and won’t be wet inside. Hurry, please!”

There was no resisting the appeal of Uriah Snodgrass, and a little
later, fondly gazing at the butterfly which was now enclosed in a
sealed glass box containing cyanide that had instantly and painlessly
put it to death, the professor walked back to his rock.

Glad, indeed, were the boys that it was a secluded place, for had any
one gazed at the antics of the half-clothed gentleman racing along
after a yellow butterfly, no doubt the police would have been notified
that a lunatic had escaped.

“My, but I’m glad I caught it!” said the professor fervently, as he
pressed the water from his coat and trousers. “It’s worth all the
trouble it caused me. A most valuable specimen!”

“How is it you aren’t at Boxwood Hall?” asked Bob, as the professor’s
garments were hung about on bushes to dry in the hot sun and wind, for
it was decided to let some of the moisture get out before having him
put them on again.

“Oh, I’ve given up the zoölogy chair at Boxwood,” was the answer. And,
in reply to the surprised looks of the boys, the professor went on: “I
did so on the advice of my doctor. He said I was indoors too much. I
must spend all this summer and fall in the open. I am going to travel.
In fact, I have just started. And when I found I had some time on my
hands, I decided to come and see my old pupils. My, but you’ve changed
a lot since I last saw you!” he said, looking at the lads.

“We’ve been to war,” said Jerry.

“Oh, yes, there was a war,” murmured Uriah Snodgrass, as if he could
have forgotten it! As a matter of fact, he had been on the transport on
which Ned, Bob and Jerry returned home. “Well, at any rate, I am away
from Boxwood Hall on a year’s leave of absence,” said the professor.

“And what are you going to do?” Bob wanted to know.

“Travel and collect specimens,” was the answer.

“Why don’t you come with us, as you’ve done before?” burst out Ned.
“We’re going out West to a place called Thunder Mountain, in Montana.
Why not come along, Professor?”

Professor Snodgrass shook his head as he turned over his wet coat so
that the sun and wind might better dry it.

“I’m afraid that’s too far for me,” he said. “The doctor said I must
take it easy.”

“Well, come with us as far as Chicago,” suggested Jerry. “We are going
that far, at least, in a motor car. You’ll get plenty of fresh air that
way.”

“I shall be delighted!” announced Professor Snodgrass. “It will suit me
to perfection. In fact, I was going to ask you boys to let me accompany
you if you contemplated any short trips this summer. But to Thunder
Mountain in Montana--well, that’s a bit too far, I’m afraid.”

“Perhaps you won’t find it so after you get started,” suggested Ned.
“At any rate, we’ll count on you as far as Chicago.”

“Yes, you may do that, thank you,” was the answer.

A little later, when the professor’s clothing was dry enough to allow
him to squeeze himself into it, the party started for Jerry’s house by
a little-frequented path.

The professor was a queer-looking sight, but, then, as he nearly always
was in this condition, caused by crawling and climbing after bugs and
butterflies wherever he saw them, it did not much matter.

Mrs. Hopkins made him welcome, as she always did, and the boys offered
to go to the railroad station to inquire about the professor’s trunk,
which he said he had checked to Cresville.

“Though it might be to any other station that happened to enter his
head,” chuckled Jerry to his chums.

However, they found that for once, at least, Uriah Snodgrass had had
his wits about him, and the trunk was waiting for him. Engaging an
expressman to take it to Jerry’s house, the boys found themselves
without any special plan in view until supper time. Jerry had invited
Ned and Bob to eat supper with him, when they could again meet their
friend, the scientist.

“What say we go out to the place where the farmhouse was on fire?”
suggested Ned, as they walked along. “I’d like to see that old miner
again. We can tell him we’re about ready to go out West ourselves, and
as he said he was going back, we might meet him out in Montana.”

“Yes,” agreed Jerry, “we might. Let’s go.”

They were not far from Ned’s house, and as he owned a small car they
piled into that and were soon approaching the burned house. Carpenters
were at work repairing the damages of the fire, and limping about in
the yard, watching them, was Bill Cromley.

“Hello, boys!” he cordially greeted them as they alighted. “Glad to see
you! Just had some friends of yours here about an hour ago.”

“Friends of ours?” asked Ned, wondering whether Professor Snodgrass had
been out after bugs.

“Yes. In fact, I think they’re here yet. They came to get some potatoes
of my sister. She’s having one of the men dig them. Yes, there they
are! They came in an auto, same as you did.”

Bill Cromley pointed down a lane that bordered a potato field in which
a man was digging. Standing near the fence, alongside of which a car
was drawn up, were two lads. At the sight of them the Motor Boys
uttered exclamations of surprise, and Jerry said:

“They aren’t friends of ours!”

“Noddy Nixon and Jack Pender--I should say not!” cried Bob.

“Did they tell you they were, Mr. Cromley?” asked Ned.

“Well, I don’t know as they exactly said they were _friends_ of
yours,” admitted the old miner slowly. “They said they knew you.”

“Oh, that’s different!” remarked Jerry. “Yes, we know them, but we
don’t----”

“Cut it out, Jerry, they’re coming up this way,” said Bob in a low
voice, as he saw Noddy and Jack getting into the car with a sack of
potatoes. “We don’t want another row here.”

“No, that’s right,” added Ned.

“All right, I won’t so much as look at them,” promised the tall lad.

Having purchased the vegetables they had come after, Noddy and Jack
drove on out of the lane. As they passed the place where the Motor
Boys stood with Bill Cromley, the bully and his crony cast suspicious
glances at Jerry and his chums and Noddy said something in a low voice
to Jack.

On their parts, the Motor Boys spoke not a word, but, as Ned remarked
later, “we looked plenty at them!”

Mr. Cromley seemed to sense that there was a strained feeling between
the parties of lads, and he said nothing to bring on hostilities.

“So they aren’t friends of yours, eh?” questioned the old miner when
Jack and Noddy were speeding off down the road after a backward look at
the three chums.

“I should say not!” declared Jerry. “Anything but that!” and his face
showed his disgust.

“Hum! I’m sorry,” went on Mr. Cromley.

“We aren’t!” laughed Jerry. “We don’t enjoy knowing such contemptible
characters.”

“No, I mean I’m sorry for what I told them. Are you certain they aren’t
to be relied upon?”

“They most certainly aren’t!” burst out Ned. “What would you think of a
fellow who, while in the army, would shoot himself, inflicting a minor
wound, so he wouldn’t have to fight but could go to the hospital?”

“I’d think he was a--dirty skunk!” burst out the miner. “Did that Noddy
Nixon do that?”

“He sure did! And Jack Pender is as bad,” declared Bob.

“Um! Um! I certainly have made a mess of it!” exclaimed the miner, with
a worried air. “I certainly have!”

“What did you do?” asked Jerry in curiosity.

“Why, those fellows came here this morning. They talked pretty slick,
said they knew you and all that. Heard I knew something about gold
mining. They heard, somewhere, about the treasure chest of Blue Rock,
which isn’t surprising, as I’ve told the story often enough down in
the village store. Well, to sum it all up, Noddy Nixon offered me a
good sum if I’d pilot him and his chum out West to the place where the
stage coach went over the cliff down into the canyon.”

“Did you accept his offer?” asked Jerry quietly.

“In a sense I did, yes. I’m thinking of going back out West, anyhow,
and I thought this a good chance to make some money. But if I had known
what sort of fellows those two are----”

“Did you tell them all the particulars?” asked Bob.

“Yes, I think I did--about everything! Like an old fool I blurted out
all I knew--how the horses ran away, how they went over the cliff, and
how it looked like the end of everything.”

“But did you tell them where Blue Rock is--where the accident
happened?” asked Jerry eagerly.

“I reckon I did. That Noddy Nixon is a slick one. He kept on asking me
questions--worming things out of me. And I told them all! Even about
the exact spot where the treasure chest fell. My! My! But I wish I
hadn’t! I certainly wish I hadn’t!” groaned the old miner.




CHAPTER VI

LAYING A PLOT


Silence fell over the Motor Boys when they heard this confession of
vain regret from the old miner. They could appreciate his feelings,
knowing Noddy Nixon and Jack Pender as they did.

“Do you mean he really came to you with an offer to hire you to guide
him to the place where the treasure chest fell over the cliff at Blue
Rock?” asked Jerry at length.

“He did that!” said the miner. “Offered me a good sum, too. Why, hasn’t
Noddy any money?”

“Oh, yes, he has money--that’s one of the bad things against him,”
stated Ned. “He can do things because of his money that other fellows
can’t do. He has some his grandfather left him, I think, and it’s his
own to do as he pleases with. His folks can’t control him. He’s a bad
egg!”

“He sure is!” echoed Bob. “And always was.”

“Well, I’m sorry for having blurted out what I did,” repeated Bill
Cromley. “But I reckoned he was open and aboveboard. Of course any
one has a right to search for that treasure chest that wants to--it’s
abandoned, so to speak.”

“Then we have as good a right to it as anybody else, haven’t we?” asked
Bob.

“You certainly have,” asserted the miner. “I guess I must have said it
was a case of findings is keepings to this Noddy Nixon or he wouldn’t
have asked me to pilot him and that Jack Pender to Thunder Mountain.”

“Hum! Thunder Mountain,” mused Ned. “That’s where we’re going to help
Tinny Mallison prospect his mine. I don’t just fancy Noddy Nixon being
even in the same county with us.”

“Me, either,” admitted Jerry. “But what are we going to do?”

“Well, I know one thing I’m not going to do!” declared Bill Cromley. He
slapped his hand down on his leg with the report like that from a small
pistol. “I’m not going to take his offer--that’s what I’m not going to
do! It wasn’t clinched. He said he’d bring me some money to bind the
bargain. Until I take that I’m not bound to him. That is the law of
grubstaking, and that’s what applies here. I’m through with this Noddy
Nixon! Shoot himself to get out of fighting! Bah!”

“How about us?” asked Jerry, struck by a sudden idea.

“Eh? What’s that?” came from the miner.

“I say, what about us?” resumed Jerry. “Look here, fellows, and Mr.
Cromley, I have a plan!” and his voice was eager. “We are going out
West to form a partnership with Mr. Mallison. His mine may pan out
rich, and, again, it may be a fizzle. But if we could have a chance
of looking for this chest of gold, it would give us a two-to-one
shot. What do you say, Mr. Cromley, will you come with us on the same
terms--or better--than those you talked of with Noddy Nixon?”

“You mean go to Thunder Mountain with you boys?”

“To Thunder Mountain and Blue Rock both!” stipulated Jerry.

His chums looked at him in some surprise. So did the old miner. Then,
suddenly, as if having made up his mind in a flash, Mr. Cromley again
clapped his hand down on his thigh and cried:

“I’ll do it! I’ll go with you! I’ll accept your offer. I was getting
ready to go back to the West, anyhow, and this will be just the chance
I want! I’m in with you boys from now on! I like your looks, and I
ain’t forgot what you did at the fire.”

He shook hands all around and thus the pact was sealed. Jerry and his
chums knew that their parents would be glad that an experienced man
was to accompany them to the wilds of Montana. Of course Professor
Snodgrass was much older than the boys, but as for worldly experience,
the scientist had everything but that.

“It’ll be a good thing for us to take Bill Cromley along,” said Jerry
to his chums.

“And maybe Noddy Nixon won’t go up in the air when he hears about it!”
predicted Ned with a laugh. “Oh, no!”

Noddy did just that. He went back to see Bill Cromley the next day with
Jack Pender, taking along a sum of money with which to bribe the old
miner. And when the latter, with blazing eyes as he remembered Noddy’s
war record, refused to have anything to do with the bully, Noddy burst
out with invectives.

“You’re a four-flusher! That’s what you are--a four-flusher!” he
shouted.

“None of that now! I know what I’m doing,” replied Bill Cromley. “I
don’t want anything more to do with you! I wouldn’t go to Thunder
Mountain or Blue Rock with you for a million dollars!”

“Somebody else has seen him, Noddy!” whispered Jack. “It’s Jerry
Hopkins and his bunch, you can bet on that! Those Motor Boys have
butted in on us again!”

“I’ll fix them if they have!” declared Noddy. “Say, how about that?” he
demanded of Bill Cromley. “Have you made a contract with those other
fellows who were here yesterday?”

“None of your business!”

“Oh, well, I’ll find out!” threatened Noddy. This was not difficult to
do, as gossip travels fast and easily, and the hired men on the farm
were fluent talkers. So Noddy learned that the Motor Boys were soon to
start for the West, taking with them Professor Snodgrass at least as
far as Chicago, and Bill Cromley all the way to Montana.

“Well, they got ahead of us, that’s all,” said Jack. “We can’t do
anything about it. But I sure would like a chance to get my fingers in
that chest of gold.”

“So should I, and we’re going to do it, too!” declared Noddy.

“How?” demanded Jack Pender.

“I’ll find a way!” threatened Noddy, who was furious over having been
“done out of his rights,” as he expressed it.

Noddy would have picked a quarrel with the Motor Boys and have gotten
into a fight with them the first time he met them after having learned
about Bill Cromley’s defection, only Jack Pender, with more sense than
he usually showed, pulled his crony away.

“That’s no way to do!” warned Jack. “We’ve got to get at them in some
other way. We’ve got to trick them!”

“Yes, I guess you’re right,” admitted Noddy, cooling down. “But how? We
can go out West, of course. I’ve got a car and plenty of money. But we
need some one who knows about Thunder Mountain and Blue Rock.”

“And I know the very man for that!” declared Jack.

“Who?”

“Dolt Haven!”

“Who’s Dolt Haven?” Noddy asked.

“A fellow I met in a pool parlor downtown the other day. I got to
talking with him, and he let out something of having been a miner in
Montana once. I spoke of Thunder Mountain and Blue Rock, though I
didn’t say anything about the treasure chest. I let him think it was
just a box of papers, or something like that, which might be worth
looking for. He said he had heard the story of the runaway stage, but
he didn’t seem to know anything about the chest of gold. Why can’t we
take him with us to Thunder Mountain? Maybe we can get ahead of the
Motor Boys.”

“Maybe!” eagerly agreed Noddy. “I’ll go and have a talk with this Dolt
Haven.”

This character was a new but notorious hanger-on in one of the worst
pool rooms of Cresville. He was just the sort of man Jack Pender and
Noddy Nixon would chum with, and they found him to their liking, as,
no doubt, he found them.

“Sure I can take you to Thunder Mountain!” boasted Dolt. “I’m an old
Westerner. I know all about that region. I’ve heard of this Bill
Cromley, though I’m not acquainted with him.”

“We’ve got to get ahead of them somehow!” said Noddy.

“We’ll do it!” declared Dolt, and then they laid their evil heads
together in a plot. “We’ll follow them in your car, Noddy,” suggested
Haven. “That won’t be hard to do, as you tell me you’ve done it before.
We’ll see if we can’t get this Cromley away from the Motor Boys and get
from him more information about this chest. You say it’s got valuable
papers in?” he asked sharply.

“Yes, papers--and maybe a little money,” admitted Noddy, with a quick
look at Jack. “We’ll give you some of the money if we find it, and
we’ll pay you to go out with us.”

“All right--I’m on!” cried Dolt Haven. “We’ll trail these boys and get
Bill Cromley away from them. Leave it to me to get the information out
of him. I’m with you lads on this!”

And they shook hands on their plot.




CHAPTER VII

IN THE BARN


Their experience in France and the many trips they had taken in all
sorts of conveyances had made the Motor Boys adepts in preparing for a
quick journey. The same applied to Bill Cromley, the miner.

“All I need is about five minutes’ notice,” the old miner boasted. “I
just want to sling a few odds and ends in an old valise I have, see
that I’ve got a little spare cash, and I’m ready to travel to the end
of kingdom come.”

The boys were not quite as rapid as this, but once it had been decided
they were to go to Thunder Mountain and take Bill Cromley with them,
events moved fast.

Several messages were exchanged between them and Tinny Mallison, who
approved of their plan to go to Chicago in Jerry’s auto, and from the
Windy City to take a train to Livingston, Montana.

“I will meet you in Livingston,” Tinny said. “I have a new car. Maybe
it’s not as slick as Mr. Baker’s, but it will do out here. We’ll go in
my auto from Livingston to Thunder Mountain.”

This was the gist of the Westerner’s messages, and in one he added
something that rather caused Jerry and his chums some uneasiness. For
Tinny said:

“Don’t buy any stock in Blue Rock.”

It might have been a message from a broker to his client concerning an
oil well scheme, but the boys knew Mallison referred to the story told
by Bill Cromley.

“Guess Tinny doesn’t believe what Bill said,” Ned remarked.

“Oh, well, don’t say anything,” advised Bob. “We can let the two talk
it out when they meet.”

So, though there was an undercurrent of disappointment on the part of
the boys regarding the story of the treasure chest, it did not much
weigh down their spirits.

Some of their things they sent on ahead to Chicago, and they were in
fine fettle when, one bright morning, they entered Jerry’s serviceable,
if not very fancy car, ready for the start. Good-bys were echoed and
re-echoed.

Then, at the last minute, Professor Snodgrass was discovered to be
missing.

“Where can he be?” exclaimed Jerry, who was at the wheel. “He was here
a minute ago, making notes in one of his books.”

“I’ll see if I can find him,” offered Ned. “He’s probably up in his
room, Jerry, crawling under the bed for a new kind of moth.”

“I’ll come with you,” offered Bob.

“Don’t let Chunky get into the kitchen!” warned Jerry, with a laugh.
“Watch him, Ned!”

“I will!” chuckled Ned.

“Think you’re smart, don’t you?” exclaimed the fat lad indignantly.
“What’s the idea?”

“You might want to stop and eat, and we’re late now,” teased Jerry.
“Snap into it, boys!”

Bob, with an assumed air of patience over the banter to which he had to
submit on account of his enormous appetite, followed Ned on a tour of
investigation to find the missing scientist.

Before they could enter the house, however, there came a call from the
kitchen--the voice of Katie, the maid, crying:

“Let it go! Don’t try to get it! Oh, Mrs. Hopkins! Mrs. Hopkins, this
is terrible!”

“Jerry, something must have happened!” exclaimed his mother, who was
standing near the car, saying a last good-by.

“I’ll see!” offered the tall lad, scrambling out of his seat. He made
a dash for the kitchen, getting there just as Ned and Bob reached it.
They saw Katie standing on a chair, her skirts drawn tightly about her
shoe tops, while, on his knees, poking with the fire shovel under the
ice box, was Professor Snodgrass.

“What is it?” cried Jerry.

The professor turned to face the crowd now looking at him and mildly
said:

“It’s a bug I’m after, that’s all. I came out here to get a drink, and,
saw, crawling on the sink, a very fine specimen of a red ant. It is a
variety for which I have long been searching, so I at once got a lump
of sugar to bait the ant. It crawled on the sugar, but as soon as this
young woman here saw what I was doing she screamed, jumped, hit my
elbow, and the lump of sugar, with the ant on it, was knocked under the
ice box. I am just trying to get it out.”

Jerry, as did the other boys, knew it would be useless to ask the
professor to come away without his ant, so they resigned themselves
with what patience they could summon, while he poked away with the fire
shovel, meanwhile grunting somewhat on account of his cramped position.

“Katie, you shouldn’t have made such a fuss over a little ant,” chided
Mrs. Hopkins.

“I--I thought it was a mouse he was after, and I can’t abide a mouse,”
apologized the maid.

The boys laughed, Uriah Snodgrass paid no attention to them, and
presently he cried:

“I’ve got it!”

He drew out on the shovel the lump of sugar with the ant still on it,
and, uttering an exclamation of satisfaction, the little bald-headed
scientist clapped his specimen into a bottle of cyanide and announced
that he was ready to leave.

“All right,” said Jerry. “Let’s go!”

Once more good-bys were called, and at last the auto containing the
Motor Boys and their scientist friend and Bill Cromley was on the way
to Chicago. Of course this was still a long way from Thunder Mountain,
but the boys were in no special hurry. The gold mine, they knew, would
not run away.

“And that treasure chest has been there so long it must be rusty by
this time,” remarked Bob.

“Gold doesn’t rust,” observed Ned.

“And we aren’t at all sure that we can find it,” added Jerry.

“It isn’t going to be easy,” asserted the old miner. “As I told you,
many have hunted for it and never found it. But I’ll do my best to show
you the spot where the coach went over. I’m glad I got out of going
with that Noddy Nixon,” he added.

“He’ll make trouble for you if he can,” predicted Ned. “He was as mad
as hops because we got you away from him.”

“Let him rage,” chuckled Bill Cromley. “I don’t like his kind. The
more he talked the less I liked him.”

“I guess that’s about all he can do is to get mad,” Bob said.

“Don’t fool yourself, Chunky,” warned Jerry. “Noddy Nixon isn’t the
kind to give up easily. We’ve had trouble with him before, and we may
have again.”

“Do you mean on this trip?” asked the fat lad, as he began fumbling
a mysterious package he had brought with him. At least it seemed
mysterious to his chums, for he had never once let it go out of his
hands and had seemed very anxious about it.

“Yes, even on this trip,” went on Jerry. “I shouldn’t be surprised if
we ran into him somewhere near Blue Rock. But what have you there,
Chunky?” and Jerry pointed to the package.

“Oh, it’s just a few sandwiches I got Katie to put up for me--just
before the professor got his ant from under the ice box,” said Bob,
with a trace of a guilty air. “I thought maybe we’d get hungry before
noon and----”

“Two thoughts for yourself and one for us,” laughed Ned. “Be sure you
give us our share, Bob.”

“You can have some now,” offered the fat lad.

However, his companions were not as hungry as he, and, with a murmur of
apology for what he was doing, the youth opened his bundle and, with a
sigh of satisfaction, began munching.

It was a little while after this that Ned, looking back over the road
they were traveling--an action he had taken several times in the last
half hour--asked, as they topped a rise:

“Who, do you suppose, is in that car?”

“What car?” asked Jerry.

“That one following us.”

“Is there a car following us?” exclaimed Bob, swallowing the last bite
of his sandwich.

“Yes, and has been for the last half hour,” went on Ned. “I don’t
believe it’s just a coincidence.”

“Take a look with the glasses,” suggested Jerry, nodding toward a side
pocket in the auto--a pocket where a pair of powerful field glasses
were carried. Ned adjusted them to his eyes and, standing up while
Jerry slowed down, looked back. He gazed for a moment and then cried:

“It’s them!”

“Who?” demanded Bob and Jerry. Professor Snodgrass was taking but
little interest in what was going on, as he was busy reading a book on
South American beetles. Bill Cromley, though, was all attention.

“Some one on our trail?” demanded the old miner. “Who is it?”

“Noddy Nixon and Jack Pender!” declared Ned. “Take a look!”

He handed the glasses to Jerry, who had stopped the car.

“It’s Noddy all right,” the tall lad said quietly. “And I believe he is
trying to follow us.”

“Let’s give him the slip,” suggested Bob. “You can easily do it, Jerry.
Your car has speed, even if it hasn’t looks.”

“Thanks!” chuckled the tall lad, and when he again let in the clutch he
stepped on the gas to such good purpose that a little later inspection
showed a clear road in the rear. Or at least clear as far as the Nixon
car was concerned. But the bully and his crony were not thus easily to
be shaken off.

Later that afternoon a rain storm came up suddenly. And as they were on
a dirt road Jerry said:

“We’d better stop and put on chains while we can. This road is going to
get pretty slippery soon.”

“Run into that barn over there,” suggested Ned. “It isn’t any
fun putting chains on in the rain on a muddy road. The barn is
open--whoever owns it won’t mind if we go in for a few minutes.”

“Good idea,” was Jerry’s comment.

He drove the auto toward the open door of the big barn. Finding that
there were also open doors at the far end, he ran his car close to
them, so he could go out that way without backing or turning around.

They alighted from the auto and were getting the chains out when a
noise at the door by which they had entered attracted their attention.
Ned looked up.

“Here come Noddy and Pender!” he exclaimed. “They’re hot after us--must
have taken a short cut. What’ll we do?”

“Let’s hide!” suggested Bob. “They haven’t seen us yet, and maybe we
can hear something of their plans.”

“Good idea!” decided Jerry. “To the hay, fellows!”

The three boys and the two men made a scramble for the haymow as Noddy
and Jack drove their machine into the barn.




CHAPTER VIII

A CRASH


For several seconds after having rolled into the barn out of the now
driving downpour of rain, Noddy and Jack did not seem to have noticed
particularly the other car near the opposite door. It was evident,
from what the two cronies said, that they were not aware of the
previous entrance of the Motor Boys. It was also plain that Noddy and
Jack had come in the barn for the same purpose as had those now in
the haymow--to put the chains on their wheels because of the slippery
condition of the muddy roads.

“We were lucky to get in here,” remarked Jack, as he descended from
Noddy’s car.

“I’ll say so!” exclaimed the bully. And the five, hidden in the hay,
could hear every word.

“I wonder where those fellows went?” proceeded Jack, as he got out the
chains from beneath the seat. “We were trailing pretty close after
them, when, all of a sudden, they put on speed and got away. I didn’t
think Jerry’s old gasoline gig had that much pep in her.”

“He must have had the valves ground,” said Noddy. “Come on now, Jack,
get those chains on. I’m going to smoke a cigarette.” And, leaving to
his toady the no very pleasant task of adjusting the chains, Noddy got
out to walk on the barn floor and indulge in the dangerous practice of
smoking where there was much hay and straw.

It was while Noddy was walking about that he noted the other car. No
sooner did he recognize it than the bully cried:

“Here they are! Here’s their car!”

“Are they--are they there?” asked Jack, rather weakly. He was a coward,
as was Noddy--more of a coward, in fact, and he shrank from a physical
encounter with the Motor Boys.

“No, they aren’t here,” announced Noddy, after a look around the barn.
“Guess they went to the farmhouse to get something to eat. That fathead
Bob Baker is always eating!”

“Oh, let me get at him!” whispered Chunky, hidden in the hay beside
Jerry.

“Sure, Chunky is always on hand when grub’s ready,” chuckled Jack. “So
they’re up in the farmhouse, are they?”

“Must be,” asserted Noddy. “They aren’t around, but this is Jerry’s
car all right. I’d know it in a thousand. How you coming on with those
chains, Jack?”

“One is sort of hard to get on. If you’d give me a hand----”

“Aw, what do you think I am? You said if I’d bring you on this trip
you’d do all the repair work.”

“I know I did. But this is fierce! Anyhow, you’ve got to give me a
share in that chest of gold if we ever find it.”

The Motor Boys fairly held their breath at hearing this. They waited
for what was next to follow.

“Sure I’ll give you some,” said Noddy easily. “But we’ve got to keep
following Jerry and his bunch until we get near the place. Dolt says
he knows about where the stage coach went over, but he wants to get a
little more dope on it. He thinks he can get to be friends with Bill
Cromley and maybe the old miner will give him a tip! I think he knows
some things he hasn’t told yet.”

“I’ll tip him on his head--that’s what I’ll do!” was the whispered
threat from the old miner.

“Speaking of Dolt, wake him up and make him give you a hand with the
chains,” suggested Noddy. “He’s got to work his passage. About all he’s
done since we started is to sleep on the back seat. Wake him up!”

Jerry and his chums, as they looked through the hay, saw Dolt Haven
rouse up from the rear after Jack had shaken him.

“What’s matter?” mumbled Dolt sleepily. Evidently he had been up most
of the night before.

“Wake up, Haven, and give Jack a hand at putting on the chains,”
snapped out Noddy. “It’s raining cats and dogs and the roads will be a
sea of mud soon. It’ll be as bad for the Motor Boys as for us, all the
same. Jinks! I hope we can beat them at this game. They didn’t get away
as they thought they did, though. I wonder where they are now?”

As if in answer to his question there came a sudden cry from Professor
Snodgrass, who had crawled off by himself in the hay loft.

“I’ve got them! I’ve got them!” fairly shouted the little scientist.
“Oh, you shan’t get away now!”

“Good night!” gasped Dolt Haven, as with open mouth and shaking knees
he dropped a wrench he had taken to help Jack straighten a bent link in
one of the chains. “It must be the police! I’m going to skip!”

He started to run from the barn, and Noddy and Jack were not a little
puzzled themselves by the sudden shout, when Professor Snodgrass, in
the excess of his zeal to capture a bug he had seen in the hay, slid
out of the mow and down to the barn floor. And at the sight of the
little college scientist Noddy guessed it all.

“They’re here!” cried the bully.

“Yes, we’re here!” suddenly admitted Jerry, as, followed by his two
chums and Bill Cromley, he, too, slid to the floor. “We got here just a
little ahead of you, Noddy. Hope you had no trouble following us,” he
added, with sarcastic politeness.

“Who was following you?” growled the bully.

“You were,” boldly asserted Jerry.

“We were not! Guess the roads are free, aren’t they?”

“Sure they are,” broke in Ned. “But we’ve been up there in the hay,
Noddy, ever since you came in. We heard what you said----”

“Say, let me get out of here!” gasped Dolt Haven. “I--I don’t feel very
well!”

“Shut up!” ordered Noddy. “You do as I tell you. Get those chains on,
Jack. As for you fellows, I’m not going to stand for any more of your
insults!” and he glared at the Motor Boys.

“Come off your high horse!” cried Bob. “If I had----”

“Yes, if you had something to eat you’d be fatter than ever, you big
chunk of beef!” sneered Noddy. “Why don’t you----”

At this moment there came an interruption in the shape of the farmer
in whose barn the two hostile parties had taken shelter. The man, a
crabbed tiller of the soil, had seen the two cars enter his building,
and, running out from the house through the rain, had broken up the
quarrel.

“Hey, what are you tramps doing here?” the farmer demanded. “What right
have you here, anyhow?”

“No right, perhaps,” said Jerry quietly. “We only came in to put on our
chains before continuing, and----”

“Been smoking, too, haven’t you?” demanded the man, sniffing the air.
“I must say that’s a pretty piece of work--smoking in a barn just after
I got it filled with hay! I’ll have you arrested--that’s what I’ll do!
I’ll have the law on you!”

“Just a moment, my friend,” spoke up Ned. “We weren’t smoking. I guess
we know enough not to do that in a barn.”

“Don’t tell me! I know cigarette smoke when I smell it!” cried the
farmer. “There! I just saw him drop his butt and step on it!” He
pointed to Noddy, who had done what he was accused of.

“He isn’t with our party,” said Bill Cromley. “We don’t have anything
to do with him!”

“I should say not!” sneered the bully. “I don’t want anything to do
with you fellows--not in a hundred years!”

“Except to follow us and find out where we are going,” chuckled Ned.
“Oh, we’re on to your game, Noddy!”

The farmer, who had been looking closely at Noddy, now advanced closer
and cried:

“I know you, all right!”

“Oh, do you?” asked Noddy, while Jack and Dolt did not know what it all
meant or what would happen.

“I sure do! You robbed my orchard a few years ago. I chased you and
nearly caught you. I never forget a face--not a mean one like yours,
anyhow. You’re the lad that robbed my orchard and broke down my fence!
Now you get out of here as quick as you can or I’ll have the police
after you! Get out!”

“Oh, all right! We were just going, anyhow,” said Noddy. “Got those
chains on, Jack?” he asked, taking his seat in the car.

“In just a minute, Noddy. Come on, Dolt! Hustle! This fellow may set
his bulldog after us.” The two worked to such good advantage that soon
the car was equipped with non-skidders, and Noddy started to back out.

“Ta! Ta!” he sneered. “See you later!”

“Not if we see you first!” grimly remarked Ned.

With the departure of the ill-favored trio, the farmer turned to the
Motor Boys. He seemed to have softened somewhat.

“Weren’t you smoking?” he asked.

“Not a smoke!” replied Bob.

“Well, I’m glad of it. Stay here as long as you like. Come up to the
house if you want to. I don’t mind decent folks using my barn.”

“We’ll be moving pretty soon,” said Jerry. “We only came in to put on
our chains, but we saw these fellows follow and there were reasons why
we wanted to overhear their plans, as we did. Come on, boys. Let’s get
the chains out.”

“Don’t hurry--stay as long as you like,” invited the farmer. “It’s
going to be a bad storm.”

“That’s why we want to get on to Newton,” said Jerry. “We’re going to
stop there for the night.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like here,” the man went
on. “All I ask is decent treatment. But when a fellow smokes in my
barn, and when he’s the same fellow that once robbed my orchard, broke
down my fence, and sassed me in the bargain, I have no use for him!”

He watched the boys adjusting their chains, and renewed his invitation
to them to remain. But they thanked him and moved on.

“It sure is a rain!” said Bob, as they drove along a muddy road. “Good
thing we put on the side curtains as well as the chains.”

“Sure,” assented Ned.

Presently the Motor Boys heard Bill Cromley snicker to himself.

“By Peter, these fellers were right,” muttered the old miner. “Thought
I didn’t tell ’em everything about that treasure. And no more I did!”
And he snickered again.

“What do you mean?” questioned Ned curiously.

“I didn’t tell ’em about the twin trees, down past which the treasure
chest is supposed to have slid. I got that from an old Mexican I knew
years ago. I’ll have to point out the twin trees to you boys--that is,
provided they are still standin’.”

“I’ll be glad to see them,” said Bob.

Jerry talked but little. His whole attention was needed for driving
under such difficulties. They had almost reached Newton in the
fast-gathering darkness when, as they rounded a curve, Bob, who was
sitting beside Jerry, suddenly cried:

“Look out!”

Too late! In the gleam of the lights he had turned on, the tall lad saw
a small tree that had fallen across the road. He tried to put on the
brakes, but the car slid in the mud.

The next moment there was a crash.




CHAPTER IX

THE FAT MAN


“What is it? Have we arrived?” cried Professor Snodgrass, who had been
dozing on the rear seat and had been jolted awake.

“We hit something, didn’t we?” asked Bill Cromley.

“I’ll say we did!” ruefully murmured Ned, rubbing his head that had
come in contact with one of the upright supports of the windshield.

By this time the three boys were out in the rain, standing on the muddy
road and looking at the tree they had struck. It lay almost squarely
across the highway--a dead sapling which had broken in two at the crash
of the front wheels of the car.

“Um! Not as bad as I thought,” murmured Jerry when, in the light of a
powerful searchlight he carried, he had seen that neither front wheel
was damaged. “Not even a puncture.”

“The tree was rotten, or it might have been worse,” said Bob.

Ned had gone forward to walk around the obstruction and what he
discovered caused him to exclaim:

“That tree was brought here and left across the road on purpose. Some
one tried to wreck us!”

“Then it was Nixon’s crowd!” asserted Bob. “They knew we would have to
come this way to get to Newton, and they put this tree here. There’s
where they dragged it from!” he added.

He pointed to a place alongside the highway from which, it was evident,
the dead sapling had been brought.

“A dirty trick!” murmured Bill Cromley. “Wait until I get my hands on
that Noddy Nixon!”

“He’s far enough off by now,” said Jerry. “Well, fellows, if we can
get the tree out of the way we can go on, I guess. We don’t seem to be
damaged any.”

A hasty inspection of the car showed this to be true, and the boys,
with the help of the old miner, soon pulled the two pieces of tree out
of the way and well to one side, where no other motorist would be put
in danger.

[Illustration: THE BOYS PULLED THE TWO PIECES OF TREE OUT OF THE WAY.]

All this time the professor sat in comfort in the rear of the car,
going over some of his notebooks in the light of a small lamp which was
fastened to the back of the front seat. The scientist had turned it on.

The boys, knowing his ways, did not ask him to help them, and he was
so deeply interested in the bugs he had caught in the hay that he paid
little attention to what was going on around him.

Once more, through the storm and darkness, the Motor Boys proceeded
and succeeded without further incident in reaching Newton. There they
went to a hotel for the night. They soon discovered that Noddy and his
fellow conspirators were not at this place, and they surmised that
their enemies had gone on.

Somewhat to the surprise of the boys, the morning broke clear. Though
the storm kept up all night, the rain ceased about sunrise. With
cheerful spirits the travelers filed into the dining room, led, as was
usually the case, by the substantial Bob Baker.

“Let’s sit over there,” he suggested, pointing to a table near which
hovered a rather pretty waitress, albeit she was very stout.

“What’s the idea? Do you know her?” asked Ned, in a low voice.

“No. But she looks good-natured,” Chunky replied. “She won’t mind
getting me a couple of extra plates of wheat cakes and she’ll give me
plenty of maple syrup.”

“Oh, then there’s a method in your madness,” laughed Jerry. “All right,
old scout, go to it.”

The fat but pretty and jolly waitress welcomed them to her table,
and she seemed to give special attention to Bob, somewhat to the
latter’s embarrassment.

Professor Snodgrass caused a little disturbance when, after looking at
the bill of fare, he asked the girl:

“Do you have any _lymexylon navale_?”

“Er--wha--what’s that, sir?” she asked, reaching for the bill of fare.

“I say have you any _lymexylon navale_ out here?”

“I--I don’t believe we have any for breakfast this morning, sir. But
I’ll ask in the kitchen.”

“Dear me, it isn’t anything to eat!” exclaimed the professor, with a
laugh. “I was referring to the _serricorn_ beetle, which is allied to
the _Elateridæ_ and the _Buprestidæ_. It is called _lymexylon navale_
because of the damage its grubs caused in the Swedish dockyards at the
time of Linnæus. It is very destructive to oak trees, and as I noticed
some oak trees in front of the hotel, I thought you might have seen
some of the _lymexylon navale_ bugs.”

“No--no, sir,” and the girl moved away from the little scientist. “But
we have some navel oranges, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh, no, my dear! Never mind! Bring me some soft-boiled eggs!”

With a look of relief on her face at having received an order which
she could understand, the girl hastened toward the kitchen, followed by
the smiles of the boys.

“I’ll say you picked a good one, Chunky,” remarked Jerry, after a most
bounteous breakfast. “Best little waitress we ever struck.”

“I’m coming here again on our way back,” Bob said. “She gave me more
maple syrup than I ever had with cakes before.”

“Yes, and you’ve got a generous sample of it on your face now!” teased
Ned, as the fat lad made hasty use of his napkin.

They settled their bill at the hotel and were again on their way.
Inquiry gave them information about concrete roads where they could
make good time and not be in danger of being mired because of the mud.

There was no trace of the Nixon crowd, and for this the boys were glad,
though Jerry said no one could tell when the bully might bob up on
their trail.

The plan of the Motor Boys was to proceed to Albany, and then take the
Mohawk Valley trail to Buffalo. From there they would go to Cleveland
and so to Chicago.

This program was followed, and aside from the usual incidents and
accidents of travel--once getting a puncture and again getting on the
wrong road--little of moment occurred until they reached Buffalo.
There Jerry found something wrong with the motor of his car, and they
had to lay over a day until repairs could be made.

It was in Buffalo that they again got a trace of Noddy Nixon. They
stopped at the Statler Hotel and, as a special favor, Professor
Snodgrass promised not to ask the waitresses or waiters about any
strange specimens he might desire.

“It’s all right in the country hotels,” Jerry said to the scientist,
“but in a big city one they wouldn’t understand you.”

“I see, Jerry,” was the answer. “But there’s no harm in my looking for
bugs, is there?”

“Oh, no, look as much as you like,” returned the tall lad.

Jerry went to the garage to get his repaired car. On his return to the
hotel he saw Noddy in the lobby talking to Bill Cromley.

“I’ll make it worth your while to come with us,” he overheard Noddy say
to the old miner.

Jerry hesitated, wondering what the answer would be. But if he had any
doubts as to the loyalty of Mr. Cromley, they were soon dispelled.

“Come on,” urged the bully, taking hold of the old miner’s arm. “I’ll
buy you a cigar and we can talk it over.”

“No, you won’t buy me any cigars!” cried the miner, shaking himself
free as Noddy tried to draw him toward the cigar counter. “The kind
you smoke must be made of skunk cabbage! Get that? _Skunk cabbage_ for
_skunks_!”

Noddy grew red in the face and hastily moved away followed by the
laughter of several men who had heard what was said.

“I guess we can depend on Bill,” remarked Jerry to Bob.

“We sure can. Noddy got an earful that time!”

The Motor Boys did not get another view of the bully’s crowd for some
days, though once there was evidence that Noddy was not far ahead. One
afternoon, when nearing Cleveland, they went through a small town. On
the outskirts they saw that several bottles had been smashed in the
road, the jagged bits of glass offering choice chances for punctures.

“Some more of their work!” exclaimed Ned, as Jerry carefully avoided
the danger. The car was stopped and the glass removed to protect others
who might follow.

The boys remained two days in Cleveland to rest, where they enjoyed the
sights, including Wade Park and the lake front. Then they began the
last leg of their auto journey, into Chicago.

From here they sent a message to Tinny, letting him know on what train
they were starting West. Jerry sold his car for a fair price, as the
lads did not know when they could come back, or even whether or not
they would reach Chicago again. And to store the machine, or hire some
one to run it back, would cost more than it would be worth. Professor
Snodgrass had decided to continue on for a time with his friends. He
said he felt much better.

“Well, we’re fairly on our way at last!” remarked Bob that night, as
they took their places in the sleeping car. “We’ll be in Montana in a
few days.”

“Yes, and I think we’ve given Noddy and his crowd the slip,” commented
Ned.

“It looks so,” affirmed Jerry.

They had five lower berths in the middle of the car, and after seeing
to the stowing away of their valises, the boys began to prepare for
sleep, for they had had a hard day.

“Aren’t you going to turn in, Professor?” asked Jerry, as he saw the
little man, with notebook and pencil, making his way to the smoking
compartment.

“I want to finish making a few entries, and then I’ll come to bed,
Jerry,” replied Uriah Snodgrass. “I won’t be long.”

The train slowly pulled out of the shed, followed a little later by the
second section. Until they reached Livingston, Montana, the boys would
travel on the steel rails. In Livingston they would be met by Tinny,
who would have a car for them, since they were going into a part of the
state inadequately served by railroads.

“And now for a good sleep,” sighed Jerry, with relief, as he stretched
out between the sheets. The steady motion of the train and the click of
the wheels over the rail joints was lulling him to slumber when he was
suddenly roused by the voice of the fat man in the berth above him.

Jerry well remembered the fat passenger, who had tried in vain to get a
lower berth from the porter. The colored czar of the sleeper had only
said:

“No, sah. We’s done filled up. No lowers.”

With a sigh the fat man had resigned himself to his fate, and it was
his voice that now echoed through the hitherto silent car as he cried:

“Get out! Get out! Porter! Conductor! I’m being robbed! Help!”

“Can this be a hold-up?” thought Jerry, reaching out to part the green
curtains.

At the same time he heard the voice of Professor Snodgrass in evident
distress.




CHAPTER X

THE SECOND SECTION


Jerry Hopkins for an instant or two was rather sorry he had urged
the professor to continue on with him and his companions to Thunder
Mountain. At first the scientist had planned to come only as far as
Chicago with the boys, to get the benefit of riding in the open air.

But the trip from Cresville did him so much good and he seemed so happy
at being back with his young friends and so glad of the chance to
collect specimens, that Jerry had said:

“Why not come all the way to Montana with us? We shall be in the open
air most of the time.

“But if this is a hold-up,” mused Jerry, as he began an observation,
“and the professor is going to be robbed, he won’t thank me for having
persuaded him to come along.”

By this time the tall lad was out in the aisle of the car, clad only in
his pajamas, but as there happened to be no ladies in the sleeper this
was not embarrassing to the lad. He saw the little scientist reaching
in between the green curtains that hid the occupant of the upper
section from sight.

But though this occupant, whom Jerry remembered as the fat man, was
unseen, he was not unheard, for he continued to yell:

“Help! Porter! Conductor! I’m being robbed! Some one is after my watch
and pocketbook!”

Undoubtedly the professor had his hands in among the bed clothes of
the fat man’s berth. Uriah Snodgrass was standing on the little ladder
which the porter brings when one has to climb in or out of an upper
berth.

“What’s the matter, Professor?” asked Jerry, though he thought he could
guess without being told what had happened.

“One of my most valuable specimens--a black pinching beetle which I
have been keeping alive in order to study its wing action--has just got
away from me!” explained the former instructor at Boxwood Hall. “I saw
it crawling up into this berth, and I want to get it back. It is a very
large beetle, with enormous pinching jaws and----”

“Ow! Oh, something hit me! I’m shot! He used a silencer on his gun
and shot me!” cried the fat man, sticking his head out between the
curtains. “I’m shot, conductor!” he cried, as that official entered the
car, followed by the porter who had emerged from his “den.”

“You aren’t shot!” exclaimed the professor. “That’s probably my beetle
pinching you. Where did you feel the pain?”

“Here! On my arm! Oh, there it goes again!”

He extended a fat arm, and, the pajama sleeve falling back, there was
revealed a large black bug firmly fixed in the soft flesh of the heavy
man.

“Yes, there he is, the beauty!” exclaimed the scientist. “Just a moment
now, I’ll have him!” Quickly and skillfully Uriah Snodgrass transferred
the beetle from the fat man’s arm to a glass-topped specimen box, and
then the little scientist climbed down off the ladder.

Jerry wanted to laugh but dared not, while Bob and Ned, looking from
their berths, were in the same predicament. As for Bill Cromley, he did
not stir. As he announced later, when he went to bed to sleep he did
that and nothing else.

“What’s all the row?” asked the conductor, while some other passengers,
heads sticking out of their berths, looked on interestedly.

“I was awakened by feeling a hand moving about under my pillow,”
explained the fat man. “I thought a robber was after my pocketbook and
watch. I called an alarm. Then I felt a pain in my arm and I thought I
had been shot, but, as I heard no report, I judged a silencer had been
used on the robber’s gun. But if it was only a bug----”

“It was my black beetle,” explained Professor Snodgrass patiently. “I
am very sorry, sir, but I could not let it get away. I saw it crawl up
into your berth and I thought I could get it back without awakening
you. I am sorry. By the way, the bite of this insect is harmless.”

“Um! Well, it isn’t painless, at all events,” said the fat man, rubbing
his arm.

“I regret it exceedingly, sir,” went on the scientist. “If you will
allow me----”

He took from his pocket a small tin box which contained some soothing
ointment and smeared the red spots on the fat man’s arm, for the beetle
had pinched in two places.

“That will relieve the pain,” said Uriah Snodgrass. “I use it myself,
and I have been bitten by hundreds of beetles.” He said this with an
air of pride, as one might boast of battle wounds.

“Um,” murmured the fat man, his feelings a little mollified as the pain
eased after the application of the ointment. “Well, I’m glad you have
your bug back. I don’t want to sleep with it.”

He ducked back into his berth and Jerry returned to his, looking out to
say:

“Better turn in, Professor,” for the little scientist had not yet
undressed.

“I will, Jerry, right away. I am so glad to get back that black beetle.”

“You’re no gladder than I am,” chuckled the fat man behind the curtains
of his berth. And from the fact that he laughed it might be argued that
he harbored no ill feelings. Which was the case, for the next day he
and the professor became fast friends.

The remainder of the night passed without incident, and morning found
the travelers well on their way to Thunder Mountain. They had traveled
so much that it might be supposed such life had in it nothing novel for
the Motor Boys. But they were not spoiled, and took a keen interest in
everything that went on around them.

They even helped Professor Snodgrass capture some specimens of a
peculiar fly that invaded the car when the train was passing through a
wooded section.

“I’m glad we don’t have to worry about Noddy Nixon and those two
unlovely specimens that were traveling with him,” observed Bob one day
as he and his chums came from the dining car.

“That’s right,” added Ned. “We gave them the slip good and proper.
Noddy sure had his nerve with him to follow us and try to get Bill away
from us.”

“I’ll say he did!” declared Jerry.

“You fellows don’t ever need to worry about me throwing in with that
skunk!” declared the old miner. “I’m with you from now on, and I won’t
as much as speak to Noddy Nixon if I see him.”

“I guess we aren’t likely to see him,” remarked Ned.

Mile after mile was reeled off by the clicking wheels and, in due
season, allowing for a half day’s delay caused by a freight wreck, the
travelers reached Livingston, Montana. This is a small station and is
where tourists change to take a train that carries them to Yellowstone
Park, that land of wonders.

However, the Motor Boys were more interested in looking for Tinny
Mallison, who had promised to meet them here, than they were in the
sight of many travelers alighting to change cars for the Yellowstone.

“There he is! I see him!” cried Ned, waving his hand toward a tall,
bronzed young man who hurried forward from a touring car at the sight
of the boys.

“Howdy, boys! Glad you’re here!” called the former officer, as he
came near. All formality was forgotten now, of course, since the war
was over. They were just friends--no longer officer and non-com. and
privates.

“Everything all right?” asked Tinny, as he shook hands with the lads.
“Have a good trip and everything?”

“Yes, except that one of the dining car cooks broke down and had to go
to the hospital,” said Ned, with a grave face.

“Had to go to the hospital!” repeated Mallison. “Why----”

“Chunky ate so much that the poor cook never got any rest night or
day,” went on Ned, with a serious face, which broke into a smile,
however, at the sign of a grin on Tinny’s face.

“You low-down, onery, white-livered specimen of a--” began Bob, but Ned
ducked out of the way in time.

Then there was laughter, following which Tinny was introduced to
Professor Snodgrass and Bill Cromley.

“I have heard the boys speak of you, Professor,” said the Westerner. “I
am glad to meet you, Mr. Cromley. Have you been West before?”

“I should say he had!” exclaimed Ned. “He used to mine it out this way,
and----”

“I was in the Blue Rock section,” explained Bill Cromley, in answer to
a look from Tinny. “Nothing very big----”

“But there was a big lot of gold in the treasure chest that went over
the ledge!” broke in Jerry. “Tell Mr. Mallison about it, Bill.”

Thereupon the story was told of the lost treasure chest of Blue Rock.
The boys listened eagerly, though they had heard it related before,
but they wanted to judge of its effect on Mallison. Somewhat to their
surprise and regret, he was not favorably impressed.

“Yes,” he said indifferently, “I’ve heard that yarn before. Didn’t I
telegraph not to take stock in Blue Rock? I am inclined to think it’s a
fairy tale.”

“A fairy tale!” cried Bob.

“Yes. I believe the stage driver was in cahoots with some bandits, and
the crowd took the chest away from him.”

“But the stage driver was killed!” exclaimed Bill Cromley. “I knew him.
He was a friend of mine!”

“Well, if that’s the case, I beg your pardon for doubting him,” said
Mallison. “But I can’t help believing there was something crooked in
the whole thing. That could be, and the driver still be innocent. The
bandits may have chased the horses over the cliff to make it look like
an accident so the authorities wouldn’t investigate. It’s a fairy tale,
boys--don’t take any stock in it.”

The lads looked crestfallen, but Bill Cromley said:

“No, you’ll find that it really happened the way I tell you. Hank Moody
was the driver of that stage. He was an honest man, and I believe he
lost his life trying to save the treasure chest.”

“Well, maybe,” said Tinny easily. “But come on, boys, I’ve got my new
car here and we’ll soon be hitting the trail for Thunder Mountain. I
wasn’t sure whether you’d come on the first or second section of the
train. And, by the way, here comes the second section now. Didn’t take
long to catch up to you.”

“No, we were delayed by a wreck,” explained Jerry.

The boys turned idly to observe the passengers getting off the second
section of the express. To their surprise and dismay, alighting from
one of the coaches they saw Noddy Nixon, Jack Pender and Dolt Haven!




CHAPTER XI

ON THE TRAIL


Rather stiff and cramped from their long ride in the train, Noddy and
his two companions were not as alert as they might have been under
other circumstances. They moved slowly along the station platform,
trying, as it were, to locate themselves, and in doing this they did
not catch sight of the boys they had set out to follow.

The Motor Boys, however, had seen their enemies and the need of instant
action occurred to them. Bob was the first to act, or, rather, to
suggest action, and he cried:

“Don’t let them see us! They’re trying to find us, but the longer we
can keep out of their sight the better!”

“Good idea,” commented Tinny, who had been briefly told about the
actions of the bully. “Come around this side of the station. My car is
there and we can hop in and be down the trail before those fellows get
the cinders out of their eyes.”

Arrangements had previously been made to send the baggage of the boys,
the professor, and Bill Cromley on to Tinny’s mine-house by a motor
truck, so all that the travelers had to carry were their valises. Of
course, Uriah Snodgrass had his pockets filled with bugs and insects,
as well as with glass-topped boxes in which he hoped to catch other
specimens. But as he was always thus laden it was a matter of no
comment, though, to Tinny, of some curiosity.

So it but remained for the party to act on Bob’s sensible suggestion,
slip around the side of the station and get the building between them
and Noddy’s “gang,” as the Motor Boys referred to Noddy’s party.

This was done, and before the bully and his companions had more than
turned themselves around, Jerry and his friends were in Tinny’s auto,
speeding down the trail that led to Thunder Mountain. This was the name
of a small mining settlement, as well as the general name of this whole
section.

“That was a close call!” exclaimed Ned, as they were hurrying away.

“I’ll advertise the fact that it was!” said Jerry.

“Do you think Noddy Nixon saw you?” asked Bill Cromley.

“Don’t believe so,” replied Bob. “We were too quick for him.”

“I thought you said you had shaken him,” remarked Tinny, as he guided
his car along the mountain trail.

“We thought we had,” Ned remarked. “We hoped so, anyhow.”

“And they were watching us all the while!” ejaculated Jerry
regretfully. “They just sneaked along and took the second section.”

“Well, he’d better not try any of his tricks out here,” threatened
Tinny Mallison. “We don’t stand for any nonsense in Thunder Mountain.
Of course, every man has his rights, and Noddy Nixon will be entitled
to his. But if he starts anything that he can’t finish it will be all
up with him.”

“Noddy is just the kind to do that,” murmured Jerry. “Well, anyhow, I’m
glad we’re here, Tinny. And now it’s up to you to show us a good gold
mine.”

“I’ll do that, boys!” exclaimed the Westerner earnestly. “I’m not
saying my holdings are the richest in the world, but they’ll pay well,
I’m sure, as soon as we can begin developing them. I need capital and
help, and that’s why I called on you fellows. How do you like it out
here as far as you’ve seen?”

The Motor Boys looked about on the wild but wondrously beautiful
scenery surrounding them. In the distance were tall mountain peaks, and
nearer them towered peaks equally impressive. It was a rugged country,
sparsely settled, but with great possibilities. Here and there gushing
mountain torrents chattered their way down the gashed cliffs.

“It’s great!” declared Ned, taking a long breath.

“Beats France all to smithers!” commented Bob. “I never could get used
to the food we had over there, anyhow, though of course it was a lot
better chow than the other soldiers got.”

Then he wondered why his chums laughed.

“I think we’re going to like it here,” Jerry said.

“There’s a pretty good mine,” and Tinny pointed out some men at work on
a shaft inside of a mountain, boring a hole into the rock and dirt to
get at the hidden gold.

“Is yours like that?” asked Ned.

“Rather better, I think,” Tinny said. “I’ve got a slab shack instead of
a tent, and try to live in a fashion a bit civilized. Those fellows are
just starting in,” and he indicated the tent in which the miners were
living while trying for a “strike.”

“This air sure does smell good to me!” exclaimed Cromley, taking a long
breath as they rolled past another mining camp. “I’ve been wanting to
get back here for a long time.”

“How far is this from Blue Rock?” asked Jerry of the old miner.

“Oh, not so far,” was the vague answer. “It won’t take very long to get
there in a car like this--that is, provided Mr. Mallison wants to go,”
and Bill seemed somewhat depressed by the little faith the mine owner
had shown in his story.

“Oh, I’ll go, if you fellows want to,” said Tinny, with an accommodating
air. “And, mind you, I don’t say that that stage didn’t go over the
cliff, horses and all. In fact, I know it did. But as far as finding the
chest of gold goes--nothing to it, boys, nothing to it! Why, there are
thousands of holes and pockets on the mountainside it might have
disappeared into.”

“We’ll have a try, anyhow,” decided Ned. “That is, if we don’t strike
it rich in your mine, Tinny.”

“Well, we may strike it rich, and then, again, we may have only
moderate success,” was the answer. “I know there’s gold to be had in
my holdings. I’ve had it tested and it assays well. Of course, it may
peter out after we’ve gone in a way, but the surface indications and
the trend of the ledge seem to indicate that it will get richer and
thicker the farther we go. If I hadn’t believed that, I wouldn’t have
sent for you fellows. But, with all that, you may get a chance to have
a stab at Blue Rock.”

“I’d like to go back to look at the place,” said Bill Cromley. “Some
partners of mine and me tried to locate the chest once, but we didn’t
have any luck. I know where it ought to be found, but things don’t
always turn out the way they ought to.”

“Indeed they don’t,” said Tinny, with a laugh.

He pointed out the sights along the way, the boys being much interested
in what they saw. They passed through small towns and again through
lonely stretches where not so much as a miner’s tent was observed.

“Nice car you have,” said Jerry, as he noted the smoothness with which
the auto ran along.

“Not bad,” admitted Tinny. “It’s just what I need out here. What did
you do with yours, Jerry?”

“Sold it in Chicago.”

“He’s going to buy a twelve-cylinder if this mine turns out anyway at
all well,” joked Ned.

“What do you think of that Noddy Nixon crowd, anyhow?” asked Tinny,
after a while. “I mean do you think they’re likely to do any mischief?”

“You never can tell what Noddy will do,” was Jerry’s reply. “And now
that he has Dolt Haven with him, it’s even more of a guess. If it
was just Jack Pender I wouldn’t take much stock in it, as Jack is a
weakling and a coward. But Haven, so I imagine, while he doesn’t know
much, is just ignorant enough to be dangerous.”

“We’ll have to keep our eyes on them; that’s all,” remarked Tinny.

“But they don’t know where we’ve gone,” observed Bob.

“They can easily find out if they know you fellows have come out here
to my claim,” said Mallison. “Everybody knows where my shack is.”

“Oh, Noddy can trace us, of course,” admitted Jerry. “Some one at
Livingston is sure to have seen us get into your car, Tinny, and
they’ll tell if asked. The only thing is that we have Noddy guessing
for a while, anyhow.”

“The more trouble we can give him, the better,” declared Ned.

Professor Snodgrass, who had been breathing in deep of the wonderful
and vitalizing air and looking about on the wildly beautiful scene,
suddenly made a dive for the side of the car.

“There he goes! There he goes!” he cried, pointing.

“Who, Noddy Nixon?” exclaimed Tinny, as he jammed on the brakes.




CHAPTER XII

TINNY’S SHACK


Without replying, Professor Snodgrass hastily left the car. It then
dawned upon the others that the scientist could not have been speaking
of the bully, for a quick observation did not disclose him. Nor was any
one else nor any car in sight.

But Professor Snodgrass was after something--that was evident. Along
the rough mountain trail he ran, and toward the side of a hill of dirt
and rocks, at the same time crying:

“I saw you! I saw you! I’ll get you!”

Then the boys saw what it was--a rather large-sized toad desperately
hopping along, as if it knew Professor Snodgrass was after it, as,
indeed, the little bald-headed man was.

Into the bushes Uriah Snodgrass disappeared, for thither the toad had
hopped, and the boys could not help smiling, in which silent merriment
Tinny and Cromley joined.

Out came the former Boxwood Hall instructor a few seconds later,
holding in his hand the frightened toad. To the boys it was only a
toad, but to the scientist it meant a great deal, and he was proud of
his prize.

“I haven’t seen one like this for years,” he announced, as he put the
creature into a box. “I thought they had vanished from the United
States, and it would have been a pity. But I am glad to see that
my fears were groundless. Yes, hop away, my fine fellow,” went on
Professor Snodgrass, as the toad tried to get out. “I have you and you
shan’t get away. My friend, Professor Doty, will be greatly surprised
when I write and tell him I have you. This has been a lucky day for me!”

“Well, shall we go on?” asked Tinny, with a smile, as the professor
climbed back into the automobile.

“Yes, I don’t see any more toads like this,” was the answer. “Oh, but
won’t Doty be envious of me!”

Professor Doty was another instructor in Boxwood Hall, somewhat of a
rival of Uriah Snodgrass, and the two were always differing on some
theory or idea, and one was always trying to get ahead of the other in
the matter of capturing rare specimens.

“If we had the two of them along,” whispered Jerry to the mine-owner,
“life wouldn’t be worth living. But with just Professor Snodgrass it’s
great.”

“I like him,” Tinny said. “He’s good fun and a real sport. I’m glad you
brought him.”

The mountain country was very wild, and seemingly almost deserted.
Now and then they would pass another car on the road, the occupant or
occupants of which would call a greeting to Tinny. At times the trail
was so narrow that the mine owner would stop at designated spots, sound
his horn, and wait a moment, listening for an answering blast.

“Two cars can’t pass at some places in the trail, so we have to be
careful,” he explained. “It isn’t any fun backing around the edge of a
cliff.”

But with all this, with the wildness and desolation all about them,
the boys were glad they had come. It was just the sort of activity
they needed after their exciting life in France, a life that had
unfitted them--and many others like them--for settling down to a normal
existence.

“Aren’t there any stores out here?” asked Bob, after a period of
silence, following the passage around one of the narrow spots in the
trail.

“Not many,” Tinny answered. “Why?”

“How do you--how do you get stuff to eat?” Bob brought out the words
desperately. But, to his surprise, neither Ned nor Jerry laughed.

“Well, it is a problem at times,” Tinny admitted. “There aren’t any
farms here where you can get fresh vegetables, though Hang Gow has a
sort of garden.”

“Who’s Hang Gow?” asked Ned.

“My Chinese cook, and a good one he is,” Tinny answered. “What he can’t
do with canned goods isn’t worth doing.”

“Oh, then you get canned stuff?” asked Bob, with a sigh of relief.

“Sure we do! And plenty of it. The supplies come in regularly to
Livingston and we get our share. The Yellowstone Park tourists have to
eat, you know. Uncle Sam sees to that.”

Professor Snodgrass was so busily engaged in making notes about the
rare toad he had captured that he took little part in the talk among
the boys and Mallison. Nor was Bill Cromley much given to conversation.
The miner seemed to be satisfied to sit still and look about on scenes
with which he had been familiar for many years. Every now and then he
would breathe in deeply, as if he could not fill his lungs full enough
of the pure mountain air.

“How much farther to your place, Tinny?” asked Ned, when they had
covered about a score of miles along the trail.

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes more,” the owner of the Thunder
Mountain mine answered, as he looked at the clock on the dash of his
automobile. “I told Hang Gow to have things ready for us.”

“That’s good!” exclaimed Bob, and he visibly brightened. “You mean
something to eat, don’t you?” he inquired, so as not to labor under a
misapprehension.

“That’s what I mean, Chunky!” laughed Mallison, and the other two lads
joined in the merriment.

It was somewhat less than fifteen minutes when the car rounded a sharp
curve in the cliffs and Tinny pointed ahead and exclaimed:

“There’s my shack!”

The boys saw a good-sized building constructed of slabs and boards
perched on the side of a mountain. It stood out in bold relief in the
midst of a clearing, and all about were trees and bushes.

“You get a fine view from up there, don’t you?” asked Jerry.

“I’ll say so!” was the answer.

Mallison brought the car to a stop near a spring of water bubbling out
beside the road.

“What’s the idea?” asked Bob, who was getting very hungry--unusually
hungry for him, even, as he had not had a chance to put any food in his
pockets on leaving the train.

“Got to stop, cool off the engine a bit, and fill the radiator with
water,” explained Tinny, as he got out and began dipping a can into the
spring. “There’s the stiffest climb of the whole trail between here
and my cabin, and I don’t want to take any chances on spoiling my new
car. Most of the time I have to run in second, and part of the way on
first. Safety first’s my motto!”

The boys subscribed to this and got out to walk around while Tinny
filled the radiator, which had already begun to steam, since he had run
on second some distance before stopping.

Then, when the motor meter showed by the shortness of its red column
that the engine was sufficiently cool, they started again. Tinny had
not exaggerated the stiffness of the trail, and at times the Motor Boys
were given a thrill as they climbed.

But Mallison was a careful and expert driver and there was no real
trouble, though when they at last emerged on a level stretch steam was
again coming from the radiator.

“But she’ll soon cool off now,” said the mine owner. “I can run down to
my shack with the motor cut off,” and this he did.

Mallison gave a shout as he neared the slab shack, a shout which was
answered in a queer, high voice from within.

“That one of your men?” asked Jerry.

“I haven’t any men working for me yet,” Tinny explained. “I’ve been
waiting for you fellows to see if you wanted to help develop my mine.
That was Hang Gow. Hello there?” he shouted once more, as he brought
the car to a stop at the side of the shack. “All aboard, Hang Gow! Got
some hungry chaps here--one especially!” and he looked at Bob.

The boys gave a hasty glance about the shack, noting how well, if
simply, it was constructed. They noted that in the rear a start had
been made on a mining shaft. But just as they had got this far in their
observations there emerged from the open door the figure of a fat,
evidently good-natured, smiling Chinese.

“’Lo, Mist Mallison,” he called, for though he could not manage his
R’s, Hang Gow got around the L very cleverly, hence the name Mallison
offered no difficulties to him.

“Grub ready, Hang Gow?” asked Tinny, as he alighted.

“All leddy,” was the smiling answer. “All sammee got li’l bit mlo chow
him fix up.”

The boys assumed that he meant he had a little more to do in the way of
preparing food before they could come to the table.

“All right,” said Tinny. “But hustle it, Hang Gow. These are my
friends--the Motor Boys, Professor Snodgrass, Mr. Bill Cromley,” and he
waved his hand toward his guests.

“All sammee glad to see Mloto Boys, Plosess Snowglass, Mist Bill
Clommy,” murmured Hang Gow, making fearful hash of the names, but not,
thereby, bringing any smiles of derision from the travelers. They had
heard the Chinese talk before.

“Well, boys, here we are!” said Tinny. “Now I reckon you’ll want to
wash before you eat. We’ve got what passes for a bathroom. It hasn’t
a tiled floor, though I have rigged up a shower out of an old five
gallon kerosene tin. I’ll introduce you to that later. Come on, Hang
Gow--chop-chop! Lively’s the word! Get grub on the table!” he ordered,
as he showed the travelers where they could remove some of the grime
they had accumulated on their trip.

“All lite! Much soon have glub!” replied the Chinese, in his sing-song,
and he disappeared into the kitchen.

Tinny was rapidly escorting his guests about the place, having taken
them outside to show them the wonderful view, when suddenly there came
the sound of a sharp explosion. An instant later this was followed by
the shrill screaming voice of Hang Gow.




CHAPTER XIII

ECHO CANYON


Tinny had been telling the Motor Boys some of his plans for operating
the mine, the shaft of which he was pointing out to them, when the
crack of the explosion followed by the voice of Hang Gow startled them
all.

“He’s done it again!” cried Mr. Mallison, starting on a run, the more
quickly to reach the rear of the cabin.

“Sounds as though he’d done something serious!” exclaimed Jerry. “Come
on, fellows!”

Ned and Bob followed, the former murmuring:

“I hope he isn’t hurt!”

The scene the boys beheld as they turned the corner of the cabin, or
“shack,” as Tinny called his place, was one at once to puzzle and alarm
them. The Chinese cook was dancing around on one leg, much excited and
still crying shrilly in his cracked tones. Scattered about were the
remains of what seemed to be a campfire. Near this was a tripod kettle,
and, off to one side, was a blackened and bent square tin can of about
five gallon capacity.

“Shut up, Hang Gow!” ordered Tinny, not so much brutally as with
well-intentioned meaning. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No hultie! No hultie!” jabbered the fellow. “Much nice blid-nest soup
alle samme blow up! Oh, hi! Oh, hi! Oh, hi!”

He shouted this last at the very top of his voice, and the boys could
not help laughing, for they saw that no great harm had been done. But
they could not understand what had happened. However, Tinny seemed to
understand for he laughed and said:

“Now, Hang Gow, you cut this out. I know you meant to give us a treat,
but I’ve told you not to put gasoline on a fire to hurry it up. That’s
what you did, didn’t you?”

“Mebby alle samme use li’l bit gamsoheen!”

“Um! I thought so! Well, we’ll do without your birds’-nest soup now,
Hang Gow. It’s lucky you aren’t made into chop suey yourself. Now let
this mess go and get the grub on the table!”

“All lite!” said the Chinese dutifully, and then he ceased his
lamenting and dancing and hurried into the cabin.

Making sure that the scattered fire would burn itself out harmlessly,
Tinny chuckled again and remarked:

“I guess we’ll eat soon, boys, and you, especially, Chunky. I seem to
remember you had a great liking for chow.”

“I haven’t gotten over it yet!” laughed the fat lad.

“But what happened?” asked Ned.

“Oh, the same thing that’s happened before,” replied the mine owner.
“Hang Gow once discovered that a few drops of gasoline on damp wood
makes a fine blaze. I’ve cautioned and threatened him, but it hasn’t
seemed to do much good. This is what probably happened. He is very fond
of an Oriental dish called birds’-nest soup. He gets the ingredients
direct from China--they come by mail. It is a sort of gelatin compound.
He’s given me some, but I can’t say I like it any more than I’d like
shark fins. However, he thought he would be giving you boys a delicacy,
so he started to make some birds’-nest soup without asking me. I’ve
forbidden him to mess up my kitchen with his stuff, so he has to make
it in a kettle over an open fire outside.

“He must have been doing that, and, as the fire didn’t burn quickly
enough to suit him, he put on some gasoline. He must have found a
little in the bottom of one of the cans--I have a small gasoline
engine attached to a pump. Hang Gow probably put the nearly empty can,
gasoline and all, on the fire and the explosion followed. Luckily,
there couldn’t have been more than a few drops of gasoline in the tin
or he’d have blown the shack down. I’ll have to lock up the gasoline
after this.”

Later the boys found that Tinny’s explanation was the correct one.
Hang Gow had had a narrow escape, and it made him a trifle nervous as
he served the meal a little later. But the accident had not spoiled
the meal, and Chunky was in his element. The other boys, as well as
Professor Snodgrass and Bill Cromley, seemed to have appetites almost
equal to that of the fat lad, and for a time little was heard but the
clatter of plates, knives, forks and spoons.

“Too blad no got blid-nest soup,” murmured Hang Gow, as he brought in
the dessert and coffee.

“Hum, you and your birds’-nest soup!” exclaimed Tinny, with a laugh.
“Too bad you weren’t blown to Kingdom Come! No more gas, Hang Gow!” he
warned.

“All lite--no mlo gas,” agreed the Chinese blandly.

It was night before the boys’ baggage and that of Professor Snodgrass
had been brought up from Livingston and the arrangements made for the
sleeping of the party while at Thunder Mountain. There was considerable
to do in order to get settled that had nothing to do with actual
mining.

“We’ll take up that question in the morning,” said Tinny. “I’ll let you
inspect the place, look at specimens of the ore, read the report of the
assay office, and then you can decide if you want to go into this with
me. But first of all we’ll find out if this Noddy Nixon is going to
bother us. You say he’s been on your trail?”

“Yes, ever since we began to consider your offer,” answered Jerry. “But
how are you going to find out about him?”

“I’ll ask the fellows who brought up the baggage if they saw him and
his two cronies hanging about the station.”

Inquiry developed the fact that Noddy had been a bit puzzled by the
sudden disappearance of the Motor Boys’ party, though, undoubtedly, he
must know they had reached Thunder Mountain.

“He and his crowd got a fellow to take them in and board them for
a while,” reported the driver of the truck that had brought up the
luggage.

“Then we’ll have to reckon on Noddy dogging us still,” suggested Ned.

“I reckon so,” admitted Jerry.

“Let him dog!” exclaimed Bob. “He daren’t come up here and try to get
into your mine, dare he, Tinny?”

“No, he can’t trespass on Leftover if I know it.”

“What’s Leftover?” Jerry wanted to know.

“It’s what I call the mine,” explained Mallison. “It was part of a
claim left over when some prospectors divided their holdings. It wasn’t
considered of much value, and I got it cheap. So I called it Leftover.
Then I discovered a new vein that no one had suspected. I needed help
to work it, and that’s why I sent for you boys. But we’ll go into all
that in the morning. I hope you’ll like Leftover.”

The boys did. When they looked about the next day after a restful night
of sleep they were more favorably impressed with the place than they
had been before. As might have been expected, Professor Snodgrass soon
after breakfast started out to gather specimens. The boys, with Tinny
and Bill Cromley, went to the mine.

“Don’t get lost!” called Mallison to the professor.

“Oh, I can find my way back,” he asserted.

Leftover mine had not really been worked at all. The former owners had
driven in a short tunnel. Tinny had started another, in which he had
soon come upon richer signs than the former owners had discovered. It
was to his tunnel that the prospector took the boys.

Samples of ore were shown them, together with the official report of
the government assay office.

“Now I want you to make any independent investigation you like,”
concluded Tinny. “Don’t be influenced by me. Make up your minds in your
own way. I’m going off down the trail for an hour or two and let you
have the place to yourselves. When I come back you can tell me what you
decide.”

The boys realized this splendid spirit on the part of their former
officer, and they were not long in making up their minds. They knew
something of mining, for they had been interested in it before, and
they remembered some of the pointers given them by Jim Nestor.

Then, too, they could ask the advice of Bill Cromley, who was a
practical miner.

“It’s a mighty good prospect,” Cromley said. “Of course, it ain’t a
bonanza, or anything like that, nor a get-rich-quick mine. But it will
pay good dividends and the stuff isn’t hard to get out. Go in, is my
advice.”

“That’s what I say!” exclaimed Ned. “It looks good to me!”

“Same here,” echoed Bob and Jerry.

As their parents had left the matter to the boys, it was then and there
voted to form a partnership with Tinny Mallison. He was so informed
when he came back two hours later.

“Well, boys,” he said, “I’m glad to hear it. I didn’t have much doubt,
for I knew what Leftover was. Now we’ll start in and make things hum!”

It was necessary to arrange for the financing of the project, but that
had been planned before the boys left Cresville, so there was little
more to do. Also it was necessary to hire men to do the actual labor
of getting out the ore. This would take some time, but Tinny agreed to
look after this.

“Meanwhile, you boys can take a holiday and get rested after your
trip,” he said. “Roam about the place. There’s lots to see that will
interest you and Professor Snodgrass. Bill and I will get a gang of men
up here, and we’ll soon begin taking out the ore. What do you say that
we make Bill foreman?”

This suited the lads, and the old miner was glad to be given the
position. He was eager to work and he knew mining from several angles.

“If only Noddy Nixon doesn’t try any of his funny stuff,” murmured Ned.

“If he starts anything I’ll tell him where he can get off!” cried
Jerry. “And Jack Pender and Dolt Haven with him! I’m not going to stand
for any nonsense from them!”

“I don’t believe they’ll come up here,” suggested Bob. “What they’re
after is the treasure chest of Blue Rock.”

“We’ll have a go at that ourselves,” said Jerry.

But when Tinny heard this he paused in his busy preparations long
enough to say:

“Don’t count on that, boys. It’s only a fairy tale.”

“No it isn’t!” thought Bill Cromley, but he kept this opinion to
himself.

It would be a week before actual work could be begun in the mine,
and, meanwhile, Professor Snodgrass wandered here and there gathering
wonderful specimens and, at the same time, gaining in health.

One day, about a week after they had reached Leftover, Ned proposed to
his chums:

“Let’s go to Echo Canyon.”

“Where’s that?” asked Bob.

“It’s a gulch about five miles from here, so one of the new miners told
me, where the echoes sound just as if some one were talking to you. He
says it’s a great place.”

“Know how to get there?” Jerry wanted to know.

“I think so.”

“All right, let’s go.”

“And--well, now--maybe we’d better take some sandwiches along,”
proposed Bob diffidently.

“Go to it, fat boy!” laughed Jerry, and soon Bob was in the kitchen
with Hang Gow.

After one or two false turns the Motor Boys at last reached the
vicinity of Echo Canyon. Then they made their way into it and, to
their delight and surprise, found the reputation of the place had not
over-stated its wonders. The manner in which the shouts, and even the
whispers, of the boys came back to them seemed weird. It was as though
some mysterious spirit was concealed in the nooks and crannies of the
small canyon, mocking them.

“Well, this sure is a great place!” exclaimed Ned, when they were tired
of experimenting with their voices and the echo.

“Yes, let’s get out in the open and eat,” added Bob. “It’s too dark and
gloomy in here.”

His companions agreed with him on both proposals, and they walked
along, as they imagined, the way they had come in. But they had taken
a wrong turn, or several of them, and after about half an hour of
tramping Ned suddenly exclaimed:

“Fellows, we’re on the wrong trail!”

“What do you mean?” asked Bob.

“I mean we aren’t getting out of this place. We’re wandering around in
a circle. Here we are back at the same place we started from--the place
I picked up that queer bit of red rock. Look! There’s where I kicked it
loose! Fellows, we’re lost!”




CHAPTER XIV

DOWN A HOLE


Jerry and Bob looked sharply at Ned Slade. One thought was in the minds
of the tall lad and Chunky.

“Was Ned joking?”

But a look at his serious face forbade any such idea as that. He was
in dead earnest as he looked about on the frowning rocky walls of the
canyon that hemmed them in.

“Lost! What do you mean?” exclaimed Bob, and from the caverns about
them came back the mocking echo.

“You mean!”

“Just what I say--we’re lost!” cried Ned. And the echo said:

“Lost!”

“For cats’ sake don’t yell so!” begged Jerry. “This is getting on my
nerves!”

Though he had spoken in only a low voice, back to his ears and those of
his chums came the weird whisper:

“Nerves!”

For a moment something like real panic seized the Motor Boys, and
the impulse of each of them was to run. But they did not know which
direction to take. Then, too, this sensation lasted but a few seconds
before they had control of themselves again and the situation was well
in hand.

“Do you really think we’re lost?” asked Jerry, in a whisper which in a
measure defeated the echo, as only a faint murmur came back.

“I’m sure of it!” and Ned was equally careful about using loud tones.
“This is where the echo is loudest, you remember, and it’s where I
found the red rock. I thought it might be red gold, that I’ve heard can
be found in some places, but as soon as I picked up the rock I found it
was too light to be gold, so I chucked it away. But here we are back at
the same place instead of being on our way out of the canyon.”

“That’s so,” agreed Bob. “But let’s get to some place where we can
talk naturally without all those echoes butting in, and then we can
decide what’s best to do. I’m glad I brought some sandwiches,” and he
significantly tapped his bulging coat pockets on either side.

It was no time for Ned or Jerry to poke fun at the fat lad, and they
held back any remarks that might have occurred to them.

“We may be lost a long time,” went on Chunky.

“Oh, I think we can soon find a way out of here,” Jerry replied.

The boys moved away from the place where the echoes were loudest and
came to an overhanging shelf that formed an entrance to a small cave.
Here they could talk in normal tones without being annoyed by the
mocking echoes.

“I thought we could easily get out of here after we got in,” remarked
Jerry, as they looked about them.

“So did I,” agreed Ned. “I didn’t take any particular notice, and the
miner didn’t say the place was a puzzle.”

Yet a puzzle it was proving, the boys had to admit when Ned pointed
out to them that they had actually wandered about in almost a complete
circle.

“Then the question is, how are we going to get out?” asked Bob, as he
fumbled in his pocket for one of the packages.

“What are you going to do?” countered Jerry.

“I thought maybe we’d better eat something,” said Bob, innocently
enough. “There’s a spring of water here. After we’ve had some food
maybe we can think better.”

“Chunky, for once you have a good idea!” exclaimed Jerry, laughing in
spite of their rather serious predicament. “Let’s see what you have
there!”

Generally it could be left to the stout lad not to skimp matters
when he was getting a lunch to bring with him, and this had been no
exception. Hang Gow had been generous, for which the lads were now very
thankful.

Bob opened one package of sandwiches, remarking that there were two
apiece and that it would be best to save the second batch until later,
and in this his chums agreed.

They ate, drank some of the clear, cold water that bubbled up out of a
rock, and then looked about them for a time without speaking.

Echo Canyon as a whole extended north and south, but it had many
branches.

“The question is, which way do we want to go?” asked Jerry. “And we’ve
got to decide quickly or the sun will be down and we can’t see which
way to go.”

“I say go to the north,” remarked Ned. “We came in that way, I’m pretty
sure.”

“And I’m equally certain that we came in from the south and should go
out that way,” said Jerry.

“And there you are!” exclaimed Bob.

“Well, what do you say?” asked Jerry, a bit sharply. “Looks as if you
had the deciding vote, Chunky.”

Bob shook his head in perplexity.

“By golly!” he exclaimed, “I don’t know what to say. One minute it
seems to me that we came in from the south, and then, the more I think
of it, it seems as if it was the north. I’m all turned around!”

“I guess we all are,” answered Jerry grimly. “Well, since it’s a tie
as far as you and I are concerned, Ned, we’d better try first one way
and then the other. We must keep our eyes open for any marks that we
noticed in coming into this place. We should have marked the trail in
some way.”

“Um,” agreed Ned. “Lock the stable door after the auto has been run
out! Fine!”

“Well, have you anything better to propose?” asked Jerry, a bit sharply.

“Oh, no,” Ned answered. “And I didn’t mean to be sarcastic. We’ll try
your way first, Jerry.”

This was giving in, and the tall lad understood it so. He smiled and
got up from the rock on which he had been sitting as they ate.

“Let’s go!” he proposed. “And make it snappy!”

The boys turned as near south as they could make that direction,
judging from the sun, which was now low in the west and would soon be
lost to sight behind the high, rocky wall of the canyon. Tramping along
the rough trail their eyes sought for the sight of any landmark they
might have noticed when coming in.

But they saw nothing familiar, and the farther they went the more
discouraged they became. Jerry was about to admit that he was wrong in
his surmise, and to propose going back, when Bob said:

“Well, if we stay here long enough Tinny and Bill will come for us,
won’t they?”

“Will they know where to look?” asked Ned.

“We told the miner who put us on to this canyon that we were coming
here,” the stout lad replied.

“Yes, I reckon if we don’t get back by night Tinny will organize a
searching party,” admitted Jerry. “But we don’t want to have that
happen. We ought to be able to get out of here ourselves. Looks silly
for them to have to rescue us. Come on, Ned, I’m willing to admit I was
wrong. We’ll head north.”

So they swung about, the gloom in the deep canyon deepening as the sun
sank farther and farther down in the west. They passed the place where
they had eaten the sandwiches, and Chunky felt in his other pocket
to make sure he had not lost their second meal. It was safe, and he
breathed a sigh of relief.

“We’ll soon be out now,” declared Ned, for he had faith in his judgment.

But when they had gone on for twenty minutes even Ned was willing to
call a halt, for the canyon was getting wilder and more rugged in this
section, and they now found that the trail was hardly passable.

“Wait a minute!” called Ned, rubbing his forehead in puzzled fashion.
“I don’t believe there’s any use going on this way. We sure never came
in here!”

“No,” said Jerry, “I don’t believe we did.”

They turned back a little way. It was getting darker. Bob was about
to propose that they eat again, but, just when he was going to speak,
he came opposite a defile leading off in the general direction of
south-east.

“Why not try this?” he asked, pointing to it.

“Chunky, I believe you’ve struck it!” cried Jerry. “Come on!”

The three hastened along the new trail, but they had not advanced more
than a hundred yards when suddenly all three of them felt the ground
sliding from beneath them.

They made a quick descent in the half-darkness of the canyon, sliding
down the steep, gravelly sides of a deep hole.

“Now we are stuck!” cried Ned, as he landed on the bottom in a sitting
position.




CHAPTER XV

YELLOW EYES


Quickly, Bob and Jerry had followed Ned down into the hole, sliding as
he had done. For they had suddenly and unexpectedly reached the edge of
the pit and, not knowing of its presence, they had simply stepped off
into space. They slid down the slope of gravel, rather than taking an
actual and precipitate tumble, and this saved them from broken bones,
though it jarred them considerably.

Ned’s words, about being stuck, were not to be taken literally. He was
able to arise after the first, stunning effect of the fall, and so were
Jerry and Bob.

The first thing Bob did after getting to his feet was to make a dash up
the slope down which he had slid. He could get only a few feet up the
yielding surface, however, before slipping back to the harder bottom.

“You can’t get up that way!” remarked Jerry.

“I wasn’t trying to get out--I wanted to save the sandwiches,” Chunky
answered, holding up the package he had salvaged. It had dropped from
his pocket during his slide.

“Oh, that’s different!” remarked the tall lad.

“So’s this place--different!” exclaimed Ned, looking about in the gloom
which was deeper down in this gravel pit. “Say, how are we going to get
out?”

Well might he ask that, and well might his companions seek about for an
answer. For their situation was getting desperate now, if it had not
been before. Hitherto they were at least up on the level, where they
could walk. Now they were down in a pit, almost circular, the sides of
which were composed of treacherous and fine gravel. Chunky had given
one demonstration of trying to climb it. Other efforts might result
likewise, it could be surmised.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” muttered Jerry. “They’ll never find us
down in this hole!”

“It’s easy enough to say get out,” returned Ned. “But how can we? Was
it hard going, Chunky--scrambling up after the grub?”

“Hard? I’ll say it was! But maybe there’s some easier place.”

“That’s what we’ve got to try for, and we’ve got to snap into it, too,”
decided Jerry. “It’ll soon be as dark as a pocket.”

By a strong effort of will the Motor Boys refused to let themselves
become panic-stricken. As calmly as they could, they walked about
the bottom of the pit which was about a hundred feet in diameter. Its
sides sloped up at a sharp angle. It was a natural sand and gravel pit
combined, but appeared never to have been worked. It was a freak of
nature in a land where such things were common.

The boys tried in several places to crawl, scramble or walk up the
sloping sides, but it was of such a shifting and treacherous nature,
like dry quicksand, that they could never get to the top. Once Jerry
was three quarters of the way up, only to slip and slide back.

“Boys, it can’t be done!” he exclaimed seriously. “We’ll need help to
get out of here--some one at the top with a rope.”

“Then we’d better yell for help,” suggested Ned. “Tinny and Bill, to
say nothing of Professor Snodgrass, may be out in search of us. The
miner will have been sure to mention that we were coming here. Let’s
yell.”

This they did until their throats ached, but no answering shouts came
to them, and down in the pit there were no echoes. Again and again they
cried for help. At last, when it was almost dark, Bob suggested:

“Let’s eat!”

“Might as well,” agreed Jerry, with no thought now of making fun of
Chunky.

“But we’ll be thirsty, and there’s no water here,” objected Ned.

However, there was no help for it, and though thirst plagued the boys
when they had munched the dry sandwiches, they bore their sufferings
patiently.

It began to grow cool--cold, in fact--and they had no shelter and no
covering. It had been hot when they set out, but with the going down of
the sun, cool winds swept down into the pit.

“We must keep up yelling,” said Jerry, after a gloomy pause. “No
telling when Tinny and his men may come this way.”

So they yelled and shouted, in unison and separately. Hours passed.
They were becoming desperate and were ready to make another try at
climbing the steep, shifting, sandy side of the pit when Bob suddenly
called:

“Hark!”

They all listened.

“What did you hear?” asked Jerry.

“A voice, I thought! There it is again!”

There was no question about it. A voice faintly called:

“Hello! Hello, boys! Where are you?”

Joyously they answered. The calling voices came nearer and five minutes
later a brilliant shaft of light shot down into the pit. It was an
electric torch in the hands of Tinny, who soon made his identity
known, and then the plight of the boys was told.

“We’ll soon have you out!” cried Bill Cromley. “I’ve got a rope. Some
of the men said you might be in a hole.”

Other electric searchlights now flashed on top of the pit, and in their
gleam the boys could see several figures moving about. A rope soon came
uncoiling down to them, and when they had made sure by pulling on it
that it was securely fastened, they hauled themselves up, one by one,
finding it easy to walk on the sloping, gravel side of the pit when
they had hold of the rope to give them purchase.

“Well, boys, you did a good job of getting lost while you were at it,”
grimly remarked Tinny, when they were safe at the top.

“Yes, we sure did!” admitted Jerry. “What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. We’ve been hunting for you since sunset. One of the
miners said you started for here, but there are so many places in Echo
Canyon where you might have been we didn’t know where to look.”

“I remembered this old hole,” observed Bill Cromley. “A partner of mine
once got in and nearly died of thirst and starvation before we got him
out. So I suggested at last that we look here.”

“And a good thing we did,” said Tinny. “Well, after this, boys, don’t
go into a place unless you know the way out. And now I expect you’re
hungry, aren’t you?”

“Oh, boy!” breathed Bob, but it sufficiently expressed the sentiments
of the others.

Professor Snodgrass, eager and anxious, had come with Tinny, Cromley
and some of the miners to the rescue. As soon as he found that the boys
were safe, the little scientist inquired:

“Did you see any toads or lizards down in that pit? It ought to be a
good place for them.”

“It was so dark, soon after we fell in, that we couldn’t see,” Jerry
replied.

“And don’t you go in there, Professor, to find out unless you have some
one at the top with a rope to get you out,” warned Tinny.

“I’ll be careful,” was the promise. “I’d like to go in there to-morrow.”

Hang Gow had a good, though late, supper ready for the boys, and, Bob
said, “they stepped on it!”

Echo Canyon was a good place to keep out of, the lads voted, and they
spent most of the following day resting after their strenuous excursion.

Meanwhile the financial and business end of the venture had been
arranged and Tinny was losing no time getting Leftover in workable
shape. Men and supplies, as well as mining material, gave promise of
results soon, and the boys were eager for their first sight of the
yellow metal from the mine of which they were part owners.

Contrary to expectations, Noddy Nixon was neither seen nor heard of,
nor was either of his cronies in evidence. The bully seemed to have
dropped out of sight after arriving at Livingston.

As a matter of fact, the Motor Boys were too busy to think much about
Noddy, for now that the mine would soon be turning out ore which would
have to be sent to the stamping mill, they were kept busy.

Instead of going too deeply into the venture at first, Tinny and his
young partners had decided to have their ore treated and the gold
extracted by another and larger mining concern near by. If they erected
a stamping mill, in which the rock would be pulverized and the gold
extracted by one of several processes, it would mean the expenditure
of a small fortune, and only by selling stock could this be financed.
But with the money the Motor Boys’ parents had secured and authorized
them to invest, ore could be got out and sent to a stamp mill where the
precious gold would be extracted on a percentage basis.

It took rather longer than the boys had thought to start the actual
work of mining. Shacks had to be erected to house the miners and
arrangements made for feeding them. Even the employment of a
comparatively small force was a lot of work.

But Tinny knew his business, and, with Bill Cromley to help, matters
were soon in good shape.

“If we have luck we’ll begin taking out ore to-morrow,” said Tinny to
his young partners one afternoon. “You fellows have been a big help to
me. There’s nothing particular you can do now, and, if you like, you
can take the rest of the day off. But don’t go to Echo Canyon!”

“Nothing doing, pos-i-tive-ly!” cried Ned.

They voted to visit a waterfall of great beauty a few miles from
Leftover, and as the trail there and back was well marked they decided
they could not be lost.

“I’ll go with you,” offered Professor Snodgrass, as they were about to
start. “I am anxious to get some specimens of water spiders, and I may
find them in the pool below the falls.”

The waterfall was even more beautiful than had been described to
them, and Uriah Snodgrass was delighted to find several large spiders
skittering about in quiet eddies of the pool below the cataract.

“Though how he can gloat over the ugly things when he can look at
that, I don’t understand,” remarked Jerry, waving his hand toward the
beautiful falls.

So delightful was the place and so long did they linger to enable
Professor Snodgrass to get a few more bugs, that it was getting dark
when they started back along the trail to Leftover.

Jerry and Ned were walking along ahead, with Bob and the professor
trudging along behind, when the tall lad, suddenly clutching Ned by the
arm, whispered:

“Look!”

“What is it?” asked Ned, as he followed Jerry’s extended hand.

“Those yellow eyes! Do you see them? Four of ’em! Yellow eyes--in the
bushes!”

For an instant Ned saw nothing, but as he continued to look he caught
a glimpse of what Jerry had seen. And as the last, flickering gleam of
daylight glittered on the four yellow eyes, there came from the bushes
menacing growls.




CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE


Ned and Jerry halted, brought to a sudden stop by seeing the yellow
eyes and hearing the low-voiced but ugly growls. It did not take long
for Bob and the professor to reach the same spot. Uriah Snodgrass
had been telling Bob how much better he felt since coming to Thunder
Mountain, and the little scientist was discoursing on the zoölogical
merits of some bug or other he had captured that day. But when the two
who had been lingering in the rear caught up to Jerry and Ned, the
stout lad exclaimed:

“What’s the matter?”

His voice, louder than the warning tones of Ned and Jerry, brought
forth a fiercer growl from the owners of the four gleaming, yellow
eyes, and even before Jerry could have replied had he desired to, there
leaped into the trail, not far from the four, a pair of large mountain
lions--a male and a female.

To the credit of Professor Snodgrass be it said that he was the coolest
of the party of four. He stared at the two beasts, the light of the
evening glow reflecting on the tawny coats of the lions, and then, in a
soft voice he remarked:

“How interesting!”

It did not strike the Motor Boys so at the time. In fact they thought
it was distinctly dangerous, to say the least. But they were so
impressed by what Professor Snodgrass said that for years afterward,
whenever they were confronted with danger, one or the other was sure to
remark--if there was time:

“How interesting!”

“What are they?” whispered Bob, though an instant after he had asked
the question he knew. For Tinny had told the boys that mountain lions
were the only dangerous animals in the vicinity of Thunder Mountain,
and he had fully described the beasts.

“But they won’t hurt you unless you corner them,” Tinny had said.
“They’ll slink away and leave you. They’re bad enough in a fight, but
they very seldom get into a fight.”

However, this pair seemed very much disposed to fight, and though there
was open to them the trail back, along which they could have retreated,
the animals seemed disposed not only to stand their ground but to
advance.

“I believe they’re actually stalking us!” whispered Ned.

“It does seem so,” admitted Jerry. “And we haven’t so much as a pop
gun!”

It was true--they had not come out armed, for the hunting of Professor
Snodgrass was merely for bugs, butterflies, and other insects and
required no powder or shot.

“They must have their nest or den, or whatever it is, around here,”
went on Ned, “and they think we’re disturbing them. Look! They’re
coming right at us! We’d better get some clubs, stones, or something.”

“How would it be to run?” asked Bob. “If they don’t want us here we’d
better get out!”

“No, don’t do that,” advised Professor Snodgrass. “The minute you turn
your backs they’ll spring, and a mountain lion can cover a good bit of
ground in a leap. Keep facing them!”

“But for how long?” asked Jerry nervously. “They’re coming nearer all
the while! Say, they’re ugly beasts!”

“Get out your jackknife and open the biggest blade,” advised Ned, in a
low voice. “It’s our only chance!”

This was good advice, and the boys prepared to follow it. Meanwhile the
two mountain lions were slowly advancing. Their eyes gleamed savagely
and their tails lashed their lean sides while low growls came from
their throats. Later the boys learned that the female lion had some
cubs concealed among the rocks, and this accounted for the boldness
and savage attitude of the pair.

But at present the boys were concerned only with their own safety,
and they knew if the lions sprang at them there would be a savage and
desperate fight with only jackknives for defense against the keen claws
and keener teeth of the brutes.

But Professor Snodgrass unexpectedly took a hand in the matter.

“Keep still, boys,” he said in a low voice. “I hate to do it, but I
think I can dispose of these creatures.”

He held in his hand a small collecting box.

“Here! Keep back! What are you going to do?” exclaimed Jerry, seizing
the little scientist by the arm as he was about to step forward and
nearer to the two lions. “You can’t scare them by letting them sniff
ammonia, as you once did the bull.”

“I’m not going to try ammonia on them,” stated the professor. “I only
wish I had some, and then I could save my _vespa maculata_! I may never
capture any more.”

“What’s that?” cried Jerry. “What have you in that box?” For the
professor had raised a small box as though to hurl it at the mountain
lions, an action at which they growled the more menacingly.

“I have some _vespa maculata_ in here,” the professor replied.

“Is that stronger than ammonia?” asked Bob, while the lions drew nearer.

“It’s hornets--about two hundred of them,” cried the professor. “Get
ready now, boys, duck into the bushes when I hurl this!”

He threw the box. It struck the ground directly in front of the
mountain lions and burst open. The lions growled, sprang a little to
one side in alarm, and then, as the boys in obedience to the advice of
the scientist ducked into roadside bushes, they beheld a curious sight.

The hornets which the professor had caught and imprisoned that
afternoon, being suddenly let loose, attacked with all their pent up
anger the mountain lions on their most vulnerable spots, namely, their
noses. In an instant each of the tawny beasts was stung by a score or
more of the fiercest insects of their kind known to science. There is
nothing more sudden in its action nor more painful than the sting of a
hornet, and the mountain lions had more than their share.

[Illustration: EACH OF THE TAWNY BEASTS WAS STUNG BY A SCORE OF FIERCE
INSECTS.]

In an instant these two fierce beasts, ready to attack, were turned
into rolling, tumbling, snarling, growling and panic-stricken balls
of yellow fur. They rolled about in the dust, biting and snapping at
the hornets, but with no effect. In another few seconds, their tails
between their legs, the mountain lions were in full retreat.

From their hiding places in the bushes the boys watched this strange
turning of the tables, and then they came slowly forth. With a sigh
Professor Snodgrass said:

“Well, my _vespa maculata_ are gone, and I may never get any others
like them--they were a rare variety. But I saved you from the cougars,
didn’t I, boys?”

“I’ll say you did!” cried Bob. “But why did you want us to duck into
the bushes? Did you think the lions would come for us when they were
stung?”

“Oh, no, I knew they would have enough to attend to on their own
account. But I didn’t know which way the hornets might swarm, and they
might as well have turned and come back at us as have gone toward the
cougars. Cougar is a better name for your mountain lion, boys. But
to proceed, I knew if we were under the bushes we’d be safe. But my
wonderful _vespa maculata_--gone forever, I fear!”

“I hope they don’t come back this way,” remarked Jerry, as he put his
knife in his pocket. “But, Professor, if those hornets are so fierce,
how did you tame them enough to get them into that specimen case of
yours?”

“I smoked them, Jerry. It is a well known fact that bee-keepers blow
clouds of smoke into the hives of bees when they are taking out the
caps of honey. I used the same method. But, not having a mechanical
smoker, I had to use Bill Cromley’s pipe. And a most strong and vile
pipe it was, too! Pah--I can taste it yet! But the tobacco smoke made
the hornets very gentle.

“It soothed and lulled them into temporary sleep and I could easily
transfer them from their paper-like nest to my box. The effects of the
smoke soon wore off, however, and they were fully alive when I threw
the box at the cougars.”

“I’ll say they were!” chuckled Ned. “It was quick work all right. Good
for you, Professor!”

But no words of commendation by the boys could make up to the little
scientist the sacrifice of his _vespa maculata_, and for many days he
bemoaned their loss.

“Well, I guess the way is clear now,” observed Ned, when the last of
the flying insects had circled back to their devastated nest and there
was no further sign of the mountain lions.

They returned to Leftover, where Tinny and Cromley were much interested
to hear the story.

“First time I ever knew mountain lions to be so bold,” said Mallison.
“They must have cubs.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day saw the beginning of busy times at the gold mine. The
force of miners began taking out the ore and it was hauled away in
a motor truck to the stamp mill. Eagerly Tinny and the boys watched
the specimens of rock as they were dug and blasted out, and though no
wonderful streak of pay dirt was encountered, it was all of a general
good character, indicating that the mine would prove profitable, if not
exactly record-making.

While Jerry and his chums, Tinny and Cromley worked with their laborers
at the mine Professor Snodgrass wandered about the Thunder Mountain
country getting specimens.

“Though why they call it Thunder Mountain I don’t see,” said Bob one
day. “It hasn’t thundered once since we came!”

“Just wait,” was all Mallison said, but there was a veiled significance
in his voice.

If the Motor Boys expected to have a perpetual holiday after work once
started seriously at Leftover, they were disappointed. But, in fact,
they had no such idea. At any rate, they plunged in and did not shirk
the disagreeable, and sometimes dangerous, work of mining for gold.
They felt that they were in a profitable business.

“And the best part of it is that Noddy Nixon isn’t bothering us,”
observed Bob.

“He seems to have dropped out of sight,” chuckled Jerry. “I guess he’s
looking for the treasure chest of Blue Rock, and maybe he’s fallen
into some hole.”

“As we did,” added Bob. “I guess Noddy won’t bother us again.”

It was about two weeks after work had started in earnest at the mine
that an event occurred which precipitated a strange series of events
for the Motor Boys and their friends.

Tinny and the three lads had gone down the trail on some business,
leaving Cromley in charge at the mine. Professor Snodgrass was, as
usual, off alone after insects. Returning, Jerry and his companions
were struck by the strange quiet about the cabin. No sound came from
the cheerful Hang Gow--his kitchen, where he was generally rattling
pots and pans, was silent.

“And where’s Bill?” voiced Ned. “Here’s his pipe on the ground, still
lighted, but Bill’s gone. And look--there’s been a fight or a struggle
of some kind here, the ground’s all torn up! Bill’s gone! Something has
happened!”




CHAPTER XVII

SEARCHING


There was no question but that something unusual had taken place both
inside and outside of the Leftover cabin. The very absence of noise
in Hang Gow’s kitchen was significant when one bore in mind the usual
cheerful racket made by the Chinese cook. The torn-up earth near the
spot where Bill Cromley’s still lighted pipe had fallen was more
evidence.

It took but a few seconds for all three lads to hurry around to the
kitchen.

“He isn’t here!” announced Bob, peering in.

“Yes, there he is, lying under the table!” cried Ned. “And he’s been
hurt, too! Look at the blood!”

There were some spots of red on the floor near the head of the
Chinese, and the kitchen showed signs of a struggle. A vague spirit of
uneasiness and fear was overshadowing the boys. What would Tinny find
at the mine?

However, the lads were not the ones to waste time in useless
conjecture. The three hurried into the kitchen, and their first act
was to raise Hang Gow.

“He isn’t badly hurt,” Jerry announced, running his fingers lightly
over the cook’s head. “Just a scalp wound. He’s knocked out, that’s
all. Get me some water, Ned.”

Hang Gow roused and opened his eyes as Tinny came running back from the
mine. The work was going on quietly, and a hail to one of the men had
brought the information that Cromley was not there.

Not waiting, then, to voice any of his suspicions, Tinny had hastened
back to see if the boys had come upon any clews to the mystery which
seemed settling down on Leftover.

“What happened?” cried Tinny, as he entered the kitchen and saw Hang
Gow, blood on his face, being ministered to.

“He was knocked out. We found him unconscious under the table,” Jerry
reported. “He’s coming around all right now. Maybe he can tell what
it’s all about.”

But for a time Hang Gow could only babble in his own tongue, and no one
could understand him. Tinny knew a few words of Chinese, but not enough
for any practical purpose.

However, the dazed feeling caused by the blow gradually wore off, and
after the cook had been given some hot coffee he sat up. Seeing the
friendly faces about him he began to talk in a queer mixture of English
and Chinese.

This was almost as unintelligible as his own language, and it was not
until Tinny had taken a hand, speaking firmly to the cook, that he
blurted out something that gave them a real idea of what had taken
place.

“Them take Mista Bill,” announced Hang Gow. “Them take him off in
wagon--thlee bad mans! Them come in Hang Gow’s klitchen--me think
wantee some glub. I say ‘no can do!’ Them say bad talk--hit Hang Gow.
Me fight ’um, but too much. Them take Bill ’way!”

“You mean to say three men came here, knocked you on the head, and ran
away with Bill in a wagon?” asked Tinny. “Chop-chop now, Hang Gow!
Number one talk, you know--savvy?”

“Me savvy all lite! Them take Bill. Bill much fight, but ’um take him
’way!”

There was silence for a moment. Then Jerry exclaimed:

“It’s that Noddy Nixon crowd, I’m sure!”

“Looks so,” admitted Ned.

“Do you mean to say that rascal and his cronies are as desperate as all
this?” asked Tinny.

“They sure are!” declared Jerry.

“And the nerve of them coming in here and demanding something to eat!”
cried Bob, as if this was the highest crime of all. “I’m glad Hang Gow
didn’t give it to them!”

“Guess he didn’t get the chance,” said Ned grimly. “But, say, if Noddy
Nixon has kidnaped Bill he can have only one reason for it.”

“He can’t have done it to get a line on our mine,” said Jerry. “We’ve
got too big a crowd of men here for him to try to buck up against.”

“No, it isn’t that,” Ned remarked. “But Noddy and his two cronies know
that Bill has inside knowledge as to where the treasure chest went over
the cliff. They want to get a line on that. So they have taken Bill
away and they’re going to try to make him guide them to the spot. I
guess Dolt Haven doesn’t know as much about it as he said he did.”

“Probably not,” assented Tinny. “It’s all a fairy story about that
treasure chest, anyhow.”

“And do you think they really have taken Bill?” asked Bob.

“It looks so--his pipe being dropped and all that,” Jerry replied.
“Bill was very careful about his pipe. Professor Snodgrass had hard
work to borrow it that time he smoked the hornets.”

“Let me question Hang Gow a little more,” suggested Tinny.

The Chinese was feeling better now, and had recovered his nerve, so
he was better able to tell what had happened. Piecing together his
story, as drawn out by Tinny, it appeared that three men, surmised to
be Noddy, Jack and Dolt Haven, had suddenly appeared at Leftover in the
absence of the mine owners.

One of them had attacked Hang Gow on pretense of entering the kitchen
to ask for something to eat. The Chinese had been knocked out by a
blow on the head with some blunt instrument, but before he lapsed into
unconsciousness on the floor under his table he had seen through a
window the attack on Bill Cromley.

In spite of his struggles, Cromley had been overpowered and taken off
in a wagon or an auto; Hang Gow was not quite sure or quite clear about
this.

“At any rate, they’ve got Bill!” exclaimed Ned.

“It’s a wonder the men at the mine didn’t hear something of the fight,”
remarked Bob.

“They didn’t hear a thing,” reported Tinny. “They were blasting about
that time, and that probably accounts for their not hearing anything of
what went on here. Besides, it was all over in a few minutes, according
to Hang Gow. They must have taken Bill by surprise. But now that we
know what happened, we’ve got to do something!”

“You said it!” cried Bob, with sudden energy. “Come on! Let’s trail
after Noddy and his gang!”

“That’s what we’ll have to do if we want to get Bill back,” added Ned.

“If Bill wasn’t handicapped by that lame leg of his,” said Jerry, “he’d
have put up a better fight, I’m sure.”

“Well,” remarked Tinny, “I think there’s only one thing to do, as you
boys have suggested. We must begin a search for Bill. We can’t leave
him in the hands of those rascals, though they’ll probably treat him
decently for the sake of the information they hope to get out of him.”

“Then we’ve got to hit the trail?” asked Bob.

“Sure!” cried Ned and Jerry.

“I’ll put up the grub,” offered Bob, in all seriousness. “Hang Gow can
go to bed and get over his headache. I’ll look after things here.”

But this was just what the cook would not allow. As soon as he
understood what Bob’s object was--kindly though it was intended--Hang
Gow made all sorts of Chinese noises, and in effect said it would take
more than a knock-out to keep him from his kitchen work.

The result was that after his head had been bound up Hang Gow resumed
work where it had been interrupted.

Then the Motor Boys and Tinny began searching for clews that would put
them on the trail of Noddy and his crowd.

“We’d better go right down to Livingston and find out where they hang
out,” suggested Tinny. “Where’s the professor?”

“Out after bugs,” replied Ned. “But he isn’t much good in a case like
this.”

“He was all right when it came to the mountain lions,” remarked Bob.

“That’s so!” agreed Jerry.

“I didn’t think so much of taking him with us, as that if we go away we
ought to leave word with him what it’s all about,” replied Mallison.
“He may come back, not find us, and imagine all sorts of things.”

“I don’t believe he’ll do much worrying,” said Jerry. “If he gets here
with some specimens he’ll sit down and make notes about them. When he’s
found a new bug he doesn’t even know when it’s time to eat unless you
tell him.”

The searching party was soon organized, two miners who were going off
duty volunteering their aid, and word was left with the assistant
foreman to tell Professor Snodgrass when he arrived what had happened.

“I hope we find Bill,” remarked Jerry, as they hastily prepared for the
search.




CHAPTER XVIII

STRANGE NOISES


The discovery of Cromley’s kidnaping, which was ultimately to mean
so much to the Motor Boys, had been made just before noon. The
searchers stopped only for a hasty lunch, which Hang Gow, in spite of
his condition, insisted on getting for them. While they ate this the
Chinese put up some food to take with them, in case they should be kept
out until after time for the evening meal. Then they took the trail
after the kidnapers.

For that Cromley had been kidnaped by the Nixon crowd was the firm
belief of those at Leftover. The object was too plain to admit of any
other theory. Noddy, despairing of finding the treasure chest of Blue
Rock through the help of Dolt Haven, had decided that the information
which Bill Cromley had was necessary.

“He knew Bill wouldn’t tell him of his own free will,” said Ned, as the
searching party hurried along, “and so he’s going to try to force him.”

“I can’t imagine Noddy forcing Bill to do anything he doesn’t want to,”
replied Bob.

“You don’t know how cruel Noddy can be when he tries,” remarked Jerry.
“Anybody who will do what he did to escape going to the front will not
hesitate at worse things. We’ve got to get Bill away from that crowd as
soon as we can.”

The searchers were under two handicaps. One was that Noddy and his
crowd had a start of at least two hours--for that time had elapsed
since the kidnaping and the return of Mallison and the Motor Boys to
Leftover. The other was the desolate region of Thunder Mountain. There
were only a few mining camps scattered about the region, and not many
persons of whom inquiries could be made as to the direction taken by
the rascals.

They might have gone off to some fastness in the hills, there to keep
the old miner a prisoner until he gave in to their demands. They might
find ways of forcing him to talk, or they might just let time take its
course, depending on his desire to be freed.

“We’ve got to get a line on where they headed for,” decided Tinny, as
they traveled along in his car toward Livingston. “Once we get on their
trail I think Hank, here, can help us.”

He referred to one of the miners they had taken with them.

“Yes,” assented Hank Bowler, “I used to be pretty good at following a
trail. If this here Niddy leaves any trace at all----”

“His name is Noddy--not Niddy,” observed Ned.

“Um--well, the name doesn’t mean much,” remarked Hank. “Once let me get
where I can see some signs of the way he went and I think I can follow.
But there’s been too many along this road to make sure of anything.” He
pointed to the main trail between Leftover and Livingston.

“He used to be a deputy sheriff, and one of the best in the business,”
Tinny informed Jerry in a low voice. “Got a bad case of gold fever and
took up mining. But he’s a great trailer.”

Whenever they saw any one along the road of whom they could inquire,
the searchers stopped and asked questions. They did not learn much,
however, for they could not describe the kind of vehicle in which
Cromley had probably been carried off. Hang Gow was not clear whether
it was a wagon or an automobile, and both kinds of conveyances had
traversed the trail.

Nor could a description of the occupants be given with accuracy. That
there were three who made the attack at Leftover was certain--probably
Noddy, Jack and Dolt. But whether the trio remained in the wagon after
having bound Cromley or whether only two of them did, was uncertain.

“They wouldn’t leave Bill up in plain sight, either,” said Jerry.
“They’d probably bind and gag him and lay him down on the bottom of the
wagon or auto so he wouldn’t be seen.”

However, making such inquiries as they could, they learned that several
wagons and automobiles with anywhere from one to half a dozen occupants
had passed along the trail that morning. There was nothing distinctive
about any of them.

“When we get to Livingston we’ll inquire at the place where Noddy has
been staying,” suggested Ned.

But there the searchers were doomed to disappointment. Up to three days
before the kidnaping had taken place, Noddy, Jack and Dolt boarded at
a not very respectable hotel on the outskirts of this small railroad
junction where tourists change trains to go to Yellowstone Park. But
the trio of suspects had then gone away, taking with them all their
possessions, and had not left word where they were going.

“Talked to me like they were going off into the mountains to look for
gold,” said the proprietor of the hotel. “At least that’s what I
overheard. It wasn’t none of my business, so I didn’t listen.”

“No, of course not,” assented Tinny.

The party emerged from the hotel and held a council as to what was best
to do next.

“They must have been laying plans for this for a long time,” said
Jerry. “That’s why they left here. They knew we’d trace them here and
they wanted to cover up their tracks.”

“It looks so,” agreed Tinny.

Further inquiry developed the fact that Noddy and his crowd had not
been hanging about Livingston for several days prior to the kidnaping.
Before that they had been making general nuisances of themselves,
pestering every one to get information as to the exact spot where the
stage coach had gone over the cliff years before with the chest of gold.

“Then, it would seem, they gave up trying to locate the place, it
appearing that Dolt Haven did not know so much as he thought he did, or
as he had given Noddy and Jack to suppose,” observed Mallison.

“They just had to have Bill,” was the way Jerry expressed it.

“So they came and got him, and they didn’t use any kid glove methods,
either,” added Ned.

When it became evident that no real lead in the pursuit could be
obtained in Livingston, since the kidnapers did not return there after
their daring exploit, several measures were proposed.

“There’s no way of sending out a general police alarm for them, as
we could do if we were in a more civilized or more thickly settled
region,” observed Tinny. “We can’t broadcast the fact that one of our
men has been kidnaped.”

“Then what can we do?” asked Bob, making a motion as though to open one
of the lunch baskets, and drawing from Jerry an admonition:

“It isn’t supper time yet!”

“Well,” said Mallison, “the only feasible thing I see for us to do is
to take one trail after another that leads out of Leftover. We’ll have
to follow each trail in turn until we strike the right one.”

“It’s all you can do,” chimed in Hank Bowler. “You can’t follow a party
until you get some lead. But there aren’t very many trails leading away
from your place, Mr. Mallison.”

This was the truth. But one trail led up to the mine. That trail,
coming down the mountain, joined the main road which, after a mile or
so, branched off in four directions. This gave four possible routes
that the kidnapers might have taken.

But, inasmuch as it was practically certain that Noddy’s crowd had not
taken the road to Livingston, there remained but three main trails to
follow.

“And the sooner we get on one the better,” said Jerry. “Come on, boys!”

“Yes, snap into it!” exclaimed Tinny, with the vim of an officer in
France.

The boys saluted, as they had done in those stirring days, and the car
was turned back up Thunder Mountain.

The first trail they took was a disappointing one, in that after they
had gone along it for several miles they found that a landslide had
covered it. And as the slide had taken place several days before, they
knew the kidnapers could not have come along here.

“Back again and try over!” exclaimed Ned.

“What about supper?” asked Bob anxiously. “Are we going back to the
cabin to eat?”

“Not when we have all this grub with us,” Tinny said. “That’s why we
brought it. We’ll eat after we strike the next trail.”

Bob looked better natured on hearing this, and began to take out some
of the sandwiches, for they were fast approaching the second trail. On
either that or the other they must, they thought, find some trace of
Noddy.

It was getting late when they started down the second trail. It was
through a wooded section, and as they approached a turn in the road
Bob saw a spring of water.

“Here’s a good place to stop and eat,” he suggested. “We can get a
drink here, and from the way your motor meter is registering, Tinny,
you’ll need water in the radiator.”

“The fat boy’s right!” agreed the mine prospector. “We’ll eat and water
the engine.”

Bob looked the gratitude he felt, and when the machine stopped he had
one of the baskets opened and was ready to distribute the food.

Truth to tell, every one was as glad as was Bob to dip into the “nose
bag,” as Ned laughingly remarked.

It was when they were in the midst of their basket-supper that Ned, who
had gone to the spring for some water, suddenly exclaimed:

“Hark!”

The talking ceased.

“What did you hear?” asked Jerry.

“A queer noise,” Ned replied. “Listen!”

All became very quiet and, straining their ears, they heard moans that
seemed to come from a clump of bushes up on the side hill back of the
spring.




CHAPTER XIX

THE PROFESSOR’S STORY


Bob Baker caused a sudden ripple of laughter, which sounded strange
amid the tense silence, when he murmured:

“Gosh, I hope it isn’t those mountain lions!”

“They don’t make a noise like that,” said Tinny. “This sounds more like
a human being.”

“We’ve got to find out what it is, anyhow,” declared Jerry. “It seems
to be over this way--that noise of groaning.”

He darted off toward the spring, followed by his companions. As they
crashed their way through the underbrush the sounds became plainer.

“Is anybody coming? Can’t some one help me?” were the low-murmured
questions that came to the ears of the rescuers, interspersed with
groans of pain.

“Yes! Yes! Some one is coming to help you!” cried Ned. “Who are you,
anyhow?”

Before he could receive an answer, even had the groaning one been able
to answer, Jerry had burst his way through the last fringe of bushes,
and, with a cry of surprise mingled with one of rage, he beheld, bound
to a tree and partly gagged, the helpless form of Professor Snodgrass.

“I’ve found him! I’ve found him!” shouted Jerry.

“Who--Bill?” demanded Tinny Mallison.

“No, the professor,” answered the tall lad. “The Nixon crowd must have
tried to kidnap him, too! It’s all right, Professor. Don’t struggle!
We’ll soon release you,” promised Jerry.

The others came up the wooded and brush-covered hillside on the
run, and in a few seconds the professor’s bonds had been cut, the
gag--a piece of wood bound in his open mouth by cords which passed
around behind his head--had been taken out, and the mistreated little
scientist was given a drink of water, of which he stood in great need.

“Ah!” he murmured, as he drained the cup a second time, “that’s good.
But let me see if they’re there! Look, will you please, and tell me!
Are they there?”

He pointed toward what seemed to be a small cave in the side of the
hill. The dark opening was near a clump of bushes.

“Whom do you mean?” asked Bob. “Did Noddy Nixon and his crowd hide in
there?”

“No, I mean some large moths,” the scientist answered. “They were
flying about and I was trying to catch them. I saw them going into that
opening, and then it all happened--happened so suddenly that it was
like a clap of thunder. I didn’t have time to see whether or not the
moths went in. I must find out. They were very rare specimens!”

Staggering to his feet--for his legs were weak from the cramped
position he had been obliged to stand in--the professor made his way
toward the little cave.

“Wait a minute! Tell us what happened!” cried Jerry.

“Show us which way Noddy Nixon went!” added Ned.

“No! No! There is time enough for that,” answered Professor Snodgrass.
“First I must see whether I can get any of those moths. It doesn’t
matter what happened to me.”

“No, but it means a lot what may happen to poor old Bill,” murmured
Jerry.

However, there was no stopping the professor once he had his mind set
on a project. He crawled into the cave, weak and trembling as he was
from brutal treatment. And presently his cry of joy announced that he
had been partly successful at least.

Out of the little cave he crawled, covered with dirt and cobwebs, but
cupped in his hands he held something fragile, to judge by the care he
exercised.

“Please hand me one of my specimen boxes, Jerry,” he directed.

“Where are they?” asked the tall lad, looking about.

“Over by that stunted pine. I hope you can find one that isn’t smashed.”

“Smashed! Did they smash your boxes, Professor?” asked Mr. Mallison.

“They did worse than that!” replied Professor Snodgrass. “I’ll tell you
all about it in a moment. Quick, Jerry, if you please, the box! I don’t
want this moth to get away. It was the only one left in the cave, but
it is a very rare specimen--a beauty! Hurry with the box, Jerry!”

The tall lad could not repress a cry of surprise when, once at the foot
of the stunted pine, he saw what wreck and havoc had been wrought. But
there was no time now for regrets. He managed to find one small, but
whole, specimen box, and the fluttering moth was transferred to it
safely from the cupped hands of the professor.

“Now that you have him safe, can’t you tell us what happened?” asked
Tinny Mallison, a bit impatiently. He was accustomed to quick action,
and once he had started a task he liked to finish it--“mop it up,” as
he used to express it in France. Just now he wanted to be after the
Nixon gang to rescue his mine foreman.

“Yes, now I can tell you,” the professor said. “As you have guessed,
it was that miserable Noddy Nixon and Jack Pender. They had a stranger
with them----”

“It must have been Dolt Haven,” suggested Bob. “But you saw him before.”

“I don’t remember,” the professor stated. “Though I do seem to recall
having heard you speak of him.”

“But was Bill with them? Did they have Bill?” cried Jerry.

“Yes, Cromley was with them. I caught a glimpse of him lying bound and
gagged on the bottom of the wagon. That’s what made them attack me,”
said Uriah Snodgrass. “I tried to go to the rescue of Cromley, but they
attacked me, and they smashed my specimen boxes--all but this one,”
and he looked at the container Jerry had handed him. “Worse than that,
they let out every one of my specimens! Some I hadn’t yet put in the
cyanide, and they were alive. They released them all--and they were the
rarest specimens I ever had. Oh, it was terrible!”

“But did they do anything to you?” asked Mallison. “It looks so,
judging by the state of your clothes.”

“Yes, they didn’t treat me any too gently,” he answered. “But that
doesn’t matter--or it wouldn’t have mattered--if they had only left me
my specimens! Oh, it is terrible to lose all those lovely specimens!”

“You should have had some _vespa maculata_ with you,” remarked Bob.

“I only wish I had had! A nest full of hornets would have sent those
rascals flying!” declared Uriah Snodgrass.

“But you haven’t yet told us what happened or given us a clew by which
we can trail Noddy,” objected Tinny.

“I’m coming to that,” promised the professor. “Just give me another
drink of water, will you please, Ned?”

The cup was passed, after having been filled at the spring, and then
Bob asked:

“Don’t you want something to eat? We have plenty of sandwiches.”

“Thank you, I don’t seem to have any appetite now,” was the despondent
reply. “Perhaps later. But let me tell you what happened. I came out
after specimens, as you know. I was up here on the side of the hill
when I heard the rattle of wagon wheels on the road below.

“Looking down, I saw an ore vehicle, lying on the bottom of which was
our friend, Bill Cromley, bound and gagged. Then I saw who was driving
the horses. It was that Nixon chap, and I at once guessed something was
wrong, remembering your talk of how he was trying to get Cromley to
impart information about the location of the treasure chest.

“I rushed down the hillside, intending to rescue Cromley, for I guessed
they had kidnaped him, but the three ruffians at once attacked me. I
heard Jack Pender say: ‘Let’s gag him and tie him to a tree. We can’t
take him with us, but we don’t want him loose to spy on us.’ The others
agreed to this.

“They overpowered me in spite of my struggles, and, after putting in my
mouth the piece of wood which prevented my exercising my vocal powers
to any extent at all, they bound me to the tree.”

The professor was taking his own time and telling his story in his
own way, but the Motor Boys knew from past experiences that the more
they interrupted to ask questions the longer and more involved the
explanation would be. So they let him proceed in his own way, by
gestures cautioning Mallison to do the same.

“I could only guess at their object in capturing Cromley and in binding
me,” went on Professor Snodgrass, “for I had no chance to ask them
questions. They treated me roughly, but I could have forgiven that if
they had not injured my specimens.

“But after they had bound me to the tree and made it impossible for me
to call out, they deliberately and maliciously stamped on, trampled
over, and broke and smashed all my precious specimens and boxes. I had
left them on the ground while I rushed to the rescue of Cromley, and
that Nixon chap, seeing them, sneered:

“‘We’ll make him wish he had let us alone!’ He stamped on and broke the
first box and then he and Pender took turns in the work of devastation.
I must say, though, that the third fellow did not join in this ruthless
work. I must give him that credit.”

“Probably Noddy and Jack didn’t give him the chance,” said Jerry.
“Those two have enough meanness under their hides for half a dozen Dolt
Haven fellows.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” sighed the professor. “Well, at any rate, after
they had bound and gagged me, and smashed my valuable specimens, to say
nothing of the boxes, I heard them drive off, of course taking poor
Cromley with them. He, too, was gagged, so he couldn’t talk to me.

“After they had gone I struggled and tried to get loose, but the ropes
were too tight. However, I did manage to work the wooden gag partly
out of my mouth so I could say a few words and groan, and that I did to
the best of my ability.”

“It’s well you did, or we might have gone on and never heard you,”
stated Ned.

“Did you come out to rescue me?” asked Uriah Snodgrass.

“No, we knew nothing of what had happened to you,” answered Jerry. “We
are on the trail of Noddy, to get Bill back, and we took this road,
among others. Can you tell us which way they went?”

“No; I couldn’t see. And I’m sorry, boys, but I don’t even remember how
their wagon was headed when I did see them. They might have been coming
up this way or going down. I don’t know.”

“I think we’d better keep on the way we’ve started,” observed Tinny.

Before any one else had a chance to express an opinion Bob raised his
hand for silence and murmured:

“I hear something coming.”

In the quiet that followed the noise of wagon wheels rattling on the
hard road was heard.

“Some vehicle is approaching!” whispered Ned excitedly.




CHAPTER XX

THE POSSE


With apprehensive faces, and yet exchanging looks which boded no good
to Noddy Nixon if this should be his wagon coming along the road, the
Motor Boys in silence gazed at each other. Tinny expressed the thought
of all when he said:

“Maybe this is Noddy now!”

“If it is he’ll find us ready for him!” said Jerry grimly.

“But why is he coming back?” Bob demanded.

“Can he have forced Bill to tell him all he knows about the treasure
chest and is he going to let him go?” suggested Ned.

“Maybe he has the treasure chest!” murmured Professor Snodgrass, who
was pathetically trying to salvage something from the wreck of his
boxes.

“The treasure chest of Blue Rock, provided there is such a thing,
which, as you know, I very much doubt,” said Tinny, “wouldn’t be here
at all. I’m willing to admit that a stage coach did go over the cliff,
but that accident happened miles from here.”

“But some one is coming,” remarked Jerry.

There was no question about that, and presently they saw who it was,
a party of miners journeying along in one of the rough wagons used to
transport ores to the stamp mills.

“Well, it isn’t Noddy’s crowd, anyhow,” said Bob.

“But maybe they saw him,” suggested Ned.

“We’d better question them,” decided Tinny.

Accordingly the party was hailed. The driver pulled in his team,
and though the men looked rather curiously at the party, especially
at Professor Snodgrass, who had in each hand a half-dead bug he had
rescued from his wreck, they did not express what they must have felt.

Without giving too many particulars of the kidnaping, Tinny told what
their object was and asked if the miners had seen the Noddy Nixon crowd.

“No, we haven’t passed any outfit like that,” said the driver. “Have
we, boys?”

“Nope!” came the chorus from the miners.

“Then Noddy must have turned off on a side trail,” decided Tinny, as
the rattling vehicle rumbled on.

“We’d better hurry if we’re going to catch him before dark,” suggested
Ned.

“I’m just thinking,” said Tinny slowly, “that it will hardly be wise
to keep on any further just now. It will soon be dark and we aren’t
prepared to camp out over night. Besides, in the darkness we can’t do
any sure searching.”

“What do you think we’d better do?” asked Ned.

“Go back to camp, get a good night’s rest, and start out fresh in the
morning with a posse,” answered Tinny. “I’ll take a bunch of the miners
with me, and Hank, you can lead another party. You boys can divide
yourselves up if you like, and we can thus follow two or more trails
at once, for we shall very likely get on false leads. Besides, I think
we’d better get the professor back to camp,” he added in a low voice.
“It looks to me as if he was about all in.”

So it was decided, and when as many of the professor’s bugs and insects
had been picked up as it was possible for him to save, he was assisted
into the automobile which was turned about and headed for Leftover.

It was quite dark when the party arrived, and Hang Gow and some of the
men were preparing supper. The miners ate by themselves in a shack of
their own, while the Chinese cooked for the Motor Boys, the professor
and Tinny.

It was well they had returned as they did, for soon after arriving in
camp Professor Snodgrass suffered a collapse and had a nervous chill.

Fortunately Mallison knew something of medicine, and as the professor
carried in his bag some simple remedies, the sufferer was soon put to
bed and everything possible done for him.

“If he’s this way in the morning we won’t dare leave him,” said Ned
to his chums. They were very fond of Professor Snodgrass and would do
anything for him.

However, the morning saw a big improvement in the little scientist. He
was brighter and more cheerful than in many days, and though his mouth
was sore and bruised from the cruel gag and though he felt lame and
stiff from his mauling and being bound to the tree, he was able to be
up and about.

The situation was explained to him--that a posse, or, to be more
accurate, two posses, were to set out and try to rescue Bill Cromley
and capture Noddy and his fellow conspirators.

“Though what we’ll do with them after we get them is a question,” said
Tinny.

“You go right along! Don’t mind me! I’m all right!” declared Professor
Snodgrass.

“But we may be gone two or three days,” Jerry said. “And if we leave
you here alone you are apt to go out after specimens, and something may
happen to you.”

“No, I won’t leave camp--I promise you,” declared Uriah Snodgrass. “I
can’t do any field work until I make some new specimen boxes, and that
will take me quite a while. Go ahead, boys, get Cromley, by all means.
I’ll stay in camp. Every one isn’t going, I take it.”

“Oh, no, we’ve got to leave a force to work and guard the mine,” Tinny
answered. “And Hang Gow will be here, of course.”

“Sule! Me stay! Me give plofless nice blid-nest soup alle sammee,”
promised the Oriental.

“Don’t let him put gasoline on the fire--that’s all I ask of you,”
cautioned Tinny, and Professor Snodgrass said he would watch out for
this.

So the two posses were organized, and soon after breakfast one, made up
of miners, started out on horses in charge of Hank Bowler, while the
boys, who had decided to remain with Tinny, got into the automobile
with him, making the second party.

“We’ll take to horses later,” Tinny said, “for very likely we’ll get on
trails where an auto is worse than useless.”

So the search for Bill Cromley began again.




CHAPTER XXI

AN AVALANCHE


With all their searching the day before, the Motor Boys and their
friends had really secured no definite clew as to the trail taken by
Noddy Nixon and his cronies when they ran off with Bill Cromley. All
they had been able to establish was the fact that the rascals had not
taken to certain roads, for they had not been seen on them.

“And this,” said Tinny as they started out on the search, “limits us to
two or three well-known trails. But, with all that, it isn’t going to
be easy work.”

The miners on horseback had been told to follow a road which the boys
had not had a chance to investigate the day before. As for Tinny, Jerry
and the other two lads, they elected to go back to the spring near
which Professor Snodgrass had been found bound.

“From there we’ll take up the trail,” said Tinny.

The automobile soon took them to the spot where they had turned back
the night before. As they came in sight of the little cave Bob remarked:

“I wonder if there are any of those moths in there now. The professor
might like to have some.”

“We haven’t any time now to stop and see,” decided Jerry. “Every hour
makes it more dangerous for Bill.”

After a consultation and a further casual looking over of the trail
in the vicinity where the professor had been bound, it was decided
that the only way to get real clews to the whereabouts of Noddy was by
asking persons along the road who might have seen the wagon passing.

They had a very good description of the vehicle, thanks to the
observations of Professor Snodgrass. Before this they had not been
certain whether it was an auto or a dump cart, for Hang Gow was so
excited that he hardly knew what he was talking about.

But the little scientist was accustomed to observing accurately, and he
had had a good view of the vehicle in which poor Bill lay bound. Thus
it could be described to persons of whom information was sought. Uriah
Snodgrass had also taken note of the two horses and, as they belonged
to the animal kingdom, he could speak intelligently of certain marks
and blemishes on them which would lead to easy identification.

“Well, at least we know what we’re looking for,” said Jerry, as they
started on again.

However, if they hoped soon to pick up the trail of the kidnapers they
were doomed to disappointment. After journeying along for several
miles, the trail being a lonely one, they met a party of prospectors
who were developing a mine.

“Did you see anything yesterday of a wagon with a bound man in it
passing here?” asked Tinny, who knew some of the miners slightly.

“No,” answered the leader. “We didn’t. Why, did you lose somebody?”

“It’s a case of kidnaping,” Tinny answered, and he told briefly what
had happened.

“Those fellows sure had their nerve with them!” was the general opinion
of the prospectors, and to this the searching party agreed.

They kept on, making several inquiries at different places, but getting
no clews until nearly noon. By that time they had found the trail so
rough that it was a risk to take the automobile over it in certain
places, and they had been obliged to creep along in low gear.

“This isn’t doing my new car any great amount of good,” decided Tinny.
“I think we’d better stop when we get to Nolan’s Pass and leave the
machine there. We’ll hire horses. They’ll be better and quicker,
though not quite so comfortable.”

It was at Nolan’s Pass, a small mining town, that they got the first
definite clews since the information given by Professor Snodgrass.

“Say, I think I know the fellows you mean,” said Jake Stout, to whom
they applied for horses. “Did one of them have a queer squint in his
left eye?”

“That was Dolt Haven!” exclaimed Ned.

“Well, he and another chap, who was very bossy, came in here late
yesterday afternoon and wanted to know if I would buy a wagon from
them,” went on Jake, who, in contrast to his robust name, was a thin,
wizened specimen of a man. “They wanted to trade the wagon in toward
the hire of some horses.”

“Did you see the wagon?” asked Tinny.

“No. But they said one of the axles had het up on account of not being
greased and the wheel was bound on it. They couldn’t budge it without a
blacksmith to take it off--sort of fused on, I reckon. There was only
two of them, though.”

“They probably left Jack Pender in the wagon as a guard over Bill,”
decided Jerry. “It was Haven and Nixon who came here.”

The others agreed with this theory.

“Did you hire them any horses?” asked Tinny.

“Yes. But I didn’t buy the wagon. I said I wasn’t in the habit of
buying pigs in a poke, though I might have taken it if they’d run it in
here. But they left it about a mile out and walked in, they said. They
wanted four horses, but they didn’t have cash enough to hire but two.

“So they took them, and said they’d be back for two more. And they did,
later that night. The first two--the one with the squint and the bossy
chap----”

“He was Noddy Nixon,” murmured Jerry.

“Yes? Well, maybe that was his name, but I didn’t hear it,” said Mr.
Stout. “Anyhow, them two came back on the horses I had hired out to
them and hired two more, which they led away. They gave me a paper
agreeing that I might keep the wagon if they didn’t come back with the
horses.”

“But four horses are worth more than an old wagon with one wheel fused
to the axle, Jake,” said Tinny, with a grim laugh, for he knew Mr.
Stout. “You’re stuck, old man!”

“Oh, no,” replied the other calmly. “I made ’em leave a deposit for
more than the four horses were worth.”

“Good!” cried Mallison.

“Where’d Noddy get all that money?” asked Ned.

“He must have held up and robbed the stage,” suggested Jerry.

“Or else they found the Blue Rock treasure chest,” added Bob.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed the horse dealer. “So you’ve heard that yarn, too,
have you?”

“Do you think it’s a yarn?” asked Jerry.

“Sure! A yarn, a fairy story, and nothing else! Ask Mr. Mallison
here--he’ll tell you!”

“Oh, Tinny never believed in it,” said Jerry. “No use asking him.”

“I’m beginning to doubt it a little myself,” admitted Bob.

“Well, anyhow, we have Leftover,” remarked Ned.

Now that they had some definite clew, they were all anxious to hurry
along the trail, but Jerry suggested that they try to find the disabled
wagon, to check up on that part of Noddy’s story.

“All right,” agreed Tinny, “you boys do that and then we’ll eat and
take to horses. I’ll arrange with Mr. Stout to let us have some. You
can ride out on three now if you like, while I put the auto in a garage
and get out our camping stuff.”

Tinny’s plan seemed wise, and a little later Jerry, Ned and Bob were in
the saddle, riding out to where, according to what Noddy had told Mr.
Stout, the wagon had been left.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to discover that Noddy wasn’t telling
anything like the truth,” declared Ned, as they ambled along.

“Same here,” echoed Bob.

But they discovered the wagon just where Noddy had said it was, and one
wheel was fused so tightly to the axle, because of lack of lubrication,
that it was impossible to turn it.

“It begins to look as if we were really after them at last,” observed
Jerry, when they had inspected the vehicle. As far as any clews in it
were concerned their search was fruitless.

“Yes, I guess we’ll catch up to them sooner or later,” agreed Ned. “But
what I can’t understand is why they wanted four horses of Mr. Stout.
Two would have been enough with the two they had hitched to the wagon.”

“Those horses wouldn’t do for the saddle,” said Jerry. “Besides, I
doubt if they had saddles. And they couldn’t ride bareback, or even
with a blanket, for any length of time. I think they sold the team to
some miners and with that money, and some which Noddy had, they hired
the four saddle horses.”

“Well, we’ve seen all there is to see here,” said Jerry, as they turned
away from the stalled wagon. “Let’s get back and start off with Tinny.”

“We’re going to eat, aren’t we?” asked Bob, anxiety manifesting itself
in his voice.

“Of course we’re going to have dinner,” laughed Ned.

“Oh--all right!” and the stout lad breathed a sigh of relief.

With blankets, packages of food, and a simple camping outfit, the party
rode off on horses shortly after noon. Though it had been comfortable
riding in Tinny’s auto, the Motor Boys were not sorry to be again in
the saddle. They had done some of this traveling in times past.

Now began the search in real earnest, for at last they were on the
trail of the kidnapers. Word was sent back to the posse of miners from
Leftover to abandon the trail they were on, since it was a false one.

But Cromley’s friends were handicapped by being several hours behind
Noddy’s crowd.

“They have one disadvantage, though,” Jerry said, “and that is they
have to keep Bill bound all the while. He can’t ride fast in that
condition, and they’ll need to accommodate their speed to his horse.
They daren’t loosen his ropes or he’ll fight like a wildcat.”

“That’s right,” declared Ned. “Maybe there isn’t such a handicap
against us after all.”

They got little scraps of information here and there about the party
ahead of them, and from the general direction taken by Noddy and the
others, toward evening Tinny came to a definite conclusion.

“They’re heading back, and circling around to get to Blue Rock,” he
said.

“Do you think so?” asked Bob.

“I’m sure of it. Why else would they want to make Red River Canyon?
That leads directly to the trail of Blue Rock.”

“Then they hope to force Bill to show them the exact spot where the
stage went over,” said Ned.

“I guess that’s it,” Jerry agreed.

“But we’ll have to try to head them off!” exclaimed Bob.

“Can’t go much farther to-night,” observed Tinny, with a glance toward
the setting sun. “We’d better look for a place to camp.”

One was found near a spring of water, and the fire was started. Bob was
overseeing the preparation of the coffee and bacon when the quiet of
the mountain region was suddenly shattered by a low but ominous rumble
and roar.

“What’s that?” cried Jerry.

“Sounds like an avalanche!” exclaimed Tinny, looking up the side of the
mountain stretching far above them. “Yes, that’s what it is, boys! An
avalanche! We’re in for it, I’m afraid!”




CHAPTER XXII

IN THE WILDERNESS


Sudden terror at what might result from the slide held the campers
motionless for a moment, but only for a moment.

Part of the side of the mountain, consisting of earth, rocks, gravel,
trees, and bushes had loosened in some manner, and was slowly but with
irresistible force hurtling itself down the slope.

“It’s a landslide sure enough!” yelled Jerry.

Tinny, quickly recognizing the extent of the slide and calculating its
probable direction, cried:

“Get the horses over this way. And grab what stuff you can. Get back of
that line of rocks. I think they’ll keep the slide off!”

He pointed to a ridge of bare rock which extended up and down the
mountain side. Like a jetty, or breakwater, it might fend off the
landslide.

“Ned and I will take the horses!” cried Jerry. “You save what grub you
can, Bob!”

This was giving the stout lad an occupation nearest to his heart,
but there was no joking in their thoughts at this moment.

“I’ll save our camp stuff!” shouted Tinny, making a jump toward some
rolls of bedding and tarpaulins on which they expected to sleep at
night, for they carried no tents.

Action was scarcely less quick than the words, and though there was a
little trouble in releasing the horses and getting them to a place of
comparative safety, it was accomplished.

All this while the landslide was advancing nearer and nearer, and with
increased force and volume. Back of the first line of rocks, bushes,
and dirt was a great mass of earth, immense boulders, great trees, and
a quantity of gravel and smaller stones. This was sweeping everything
before it, breaking off giants of the forest with trunks three feet in
diameter as if they were the long stems of churchwarden pipes.

[Illustration: THE LANDSLIDE WAS ADVANCING NEARER AND NEARER.]

For a few seconds the boys and Mallison were so busy rushing their
animals and belongings to the safe side that they did not notice the
curious roar and rumble that filled the air.

But when the horses had been tied beyond the line of rocks, which,
Tinny thought, would mark the dividing line of the landslide, and
when their food and camp stuff had been moved, the travelers had an
opportunity to listen to the nerve-racking noise that accompanied the
shifting of the face of the mountain.

The rumble and roar made a terrifying sound. It was not like thunder,
though it was akin to it. Nor was it like the blast of the tempest,
though, in a measure, it filled the air with that awful howling.

The breaking of great trees, the crash and rumble of rocks splitting in
twain, the concussion of those rocks on other boulders or against trees
which they cracked wide open, splitting them from roots to crown, the
rattle of gravel like the hail of shrapnel against steel shields--all
this served to fill the air with a terrible tumult.

All the while the landslide was increasing in speed, volume, and force.
It seemed that a great part of the mountain was going to slip down its
side into the valley below.

Fortunately, it was a desolate region, and not so much as a lone
miner’s cabin was in the path of the devastating force. Cromley’s
friends alone were in danger, but as they stood near the horses, which
were trembling in terror, they had hopes that the slide might pass them
by. The animals were very much frightened, but they seemed to prefer
the nearness of their human companions rather than to try to bolt into
the wilderness. So they did not break away.

Now the landslide had reached its maximum, and in one immense,
irregularly shaped mass of rocks, trees, and earth was going down the
mountain slope.

The vanguard of comparatively small rocks, with a quantity of gravel
and bushes, had passed on with merely a rattle. Then, close behind
this, came thousands of tons of the very side of the mountain itself,
sweeping before it every vestige of verdure and leaving in its wake but
the bare side of the great hill.

Fortunately for the campers, the landslide did just what Mallison
guessed it would do, and as he hoped it would do--it did not extend to
the side farther than to the line of great rocks deeply imbedded in the
side of the mountain.

“That alone saved us!” whispered Tinny, pointing to the great rocky
wall. Tinny’s whisper could be heard, for now that the landslide had
passed on down into the valley, there was silence about the camping
place.

Yet it was no longer a complete camp, for so close had the great slide
come that it had engulfed the fire.

“And the coffee pot and our bacon, too!” lamented Bob, when he saw what
had happened.

This had actually taken place. The coffee had been boiling on one side
of the fire, which had been built in a primitive grate of stones, and
the bacon was frying on the other side. There had been so much to do
that no one--not even Bob--had thought of saving the supper.

“Thank goodness we’ve got more grub and another coffee pot--or
something that will do for one,” remarked Bob. His companions did not
make any joke about his first thought after their escape from danger
having to do with eating. They were too thankful over their good
fortune to think of anything else for the time being.

In the gathering darkness after the dust caused by the landslide had
blown away, they looked down into the valley. Part of it was made
level and the floor of it was covered with the rocks and other débris,
splintered trees and shredded bushes.

“Well, it broke our trail,” remarked Tinny, pointing to where the slide
had cut squarely across the road they had taken to reach their present
whereabouts. “We can’t go back that way--we’ll have to keep on!”

“And we want to keep on,” said Jerry. “We want to get Noddy and his
gang and save Bill.”

“That’s right!” chimed in Ned. “Maybe Noddy ran up against one of these
things himself.”

“They’re common enough out here,” said Tinny. “But this is the nearest
that one ever came to me, and it was altogether too close for comfort.”

“Do you think it’s likely to happen again?” asked Jerry, as he spoke to
his horse and patted the animal to soothe and quiet it.

“It might, but it isn’t very probable,” was the reassuring answer.

“What causes these landslides?” asked Ned.

“No one knows--at least, I don’t,” Mallison replied. “Very likely a
large mass of earth and rocks gets loosened by rain storms, and is
held in place by a single key-rock or tree. The pressure back of the
rock or tree becomes too great, it breaks or moves, and down comes the
thousands of tons of stuff, gathering more material as it travels, like
a snowball, until it sweeps everything before it. We’re mighty lucky
not to have been in its direct path.”

The boys well knew this. But as the old saying has it, “a miss is as
good as a mile,” and when the first terror was over they regained their
usual good spirits.

The fire had been put out--swept away, in fact--but it was an easy
matter to kindle another, and they had brought with them enough
utensils to use in place of the departed coffee pot and frying pan.
None of their bedding had been lost.

“So we aren’t so badly off after all,” remarked Jerry, as they sat
about the cheerful blaze and ate.

“No, indeed,” agreed Mallison. “But we may have a hard time ahead of
us.”

“We’re used to hard times,” chuckled Ned. “It can’t be any harder than
some things we’ve been through before this.”

“No,” agreed Jerry thoughtfully, “it can’t.”

It did not take long to establish the simple camp. They got out their
rolls of bedding, gathered wood enough to make a sudden blaze in the
night in case one should be needed, saw that the horses were securely
fastened, and then prepared to get some sleep.

Because of the remote danger that another landslide might follow that
first one, it was decided they would take turns in remaining on guard.
Thus an alarm could be given by the wakeful one.

“Though, as a matter of fact, if a landslide should start above us and
come down, we could hardly get to either side of it in time in the
darkness,” Tinny said. “But don’t worry, boys. I think we’re safe.”

In spite of this, however, the lads could not help worrying some,
and when it was the turn of Ned, Jerry or Bob to remain awake for a
two-hour stretch, each one strained ears and eyes to detect the first
sound of danger.

But the night passed quietly save for a distant rattle now and again of
some falling rock that had been loosened by the slide of earth.

Morning came, with bright sunshine, and the spirits of all revived,
especially after some hot coffee and flapjacks, which Bob essayed to
make, and with success.

“Well, maybe we’ll catch up with Noddy to-day,” suggested Jerry, as
once more they journeyed onward and away from the slide.

“If, in the next two days, we don’t get nearer to him than we have
been, we’d better go back to camp and decide on a better-equipped
posse,” suggested Tinny. “We haven’t all the things we need for a long
chase. And this is the longest way to Blue Rock. We could get there by
a shorter route, and maybe be on hand when Noddy arrives with Bill.”

“That sounds like a good plan to try,” said Jerry. “We’ll tackle that
if we don’t get some fresh clews soon.”

On they went into the wilderness, little guessing what perils lay
before them.




CHAPTER XXIII

AN ESCAPE


Rough was the trail followed by the Motor Boys and Mallison; not rough
because of the landslide, for the effects of that had not reached thus
far, but naturally rough because it was in a wild and mountainous
region and little traveled.

“Good thing we didn’t try to bring your new auto here, Tinny,” remarked
Jerry, as the horses scrambled over some perilous footing. “You’d have
two broken axles, I’m thinking.”

“Very likely. Even an ore wagon wouldn’t be safe here. A horse or a
mule is all that can be used. Noddy must have known what was ahead of
him when he swapped his wagon for horses.”

“I don’t think he knows much of anything, except how to be mean,”
stated Ned. “Dolt Haven, who has been out in this region before, may
have put him wise as to what to do.”

This was very likely the case, but it did not alter the fact that Noddy
and his crowd were well in advance of their pursuers and seemed to be
keeping a safe distance ahead of them.

“Well, if we don’t catch him before, we surely will when we head in for
Blue Rock,” declared Bob. “What I can’t understand, though, is how he
can make Bill tell where the treasure chest went over if Bill doesn’t
want to. Noddy won’t torture him, will he?”

“Oh, I don’t believe Noddy would go that far,” Jerry said. “He and Jack
probably think they can influence Bill with money, now that they have
him in their power. And while Bill is a good scout, he hasn’t very much
will power. He may give in and blurt out as much of the secret as he
knows.”

“I think you fellows are worrying unnecessarily,” said Tinny. “That
treasure chest yarn is only a fairy story, as I’ve told you before. The
thing may have happened, but, even if the chest is found, it will prove
to be empty. That stage driver was in cahoots with the robbers. I know
Bill has faith in his old friend, but that doesn’t mean much.”

The Motor Boys were not putting too much faith in the story told by the
old miner, and they shared with Mallison the desire to rescue Cromley.
But, deep down in their hearts, the lads could not help hoping against
hope that there was something in that treasure-chest rumor.

They were now in a very wild and desolate region where mining was
about the only occupation that could be carried on with any degree of
success. Occasionally they came upon parties of rough men who were
thus trying to wrest a living from the earth. And from these men they
learned that Noddy Nixon and his crowd, with Cromley as a captive, had
passed that same way about twelve hours ahead of them.

Questioned as to why they did not attempt to help the prisoner, the
miners merely shrugged their shoulders and muttered that it was none of
their business; they didn’t know what the old fellow might have done.

“We’re cutting down their lead, at least,” announced Ned, hearing this
news one noon. “We may catch up to them before night.”

“Yes,” agreed Jerry.

“But what I can’t understand,” said Bob, “is how they can take Bill
along the trail, bound as they must have him, and not have a lot
of questions asked. They can’t all be as callous as those fellows
back there. Why doesn’t somebody get suspicious and ask why they are
carrying a prisoner with them? If they did this and the authorities
were notified, Bill would have been free long ago.”

“Noddy has very likely made up some sort of story to explain matters,”
suggested Tinny. “He could pass himself and his companions off as
officers in charge of a prisoner. And if they kept Bill gagged, as
they might do, putting a stick in his mouth as they did to Professor
Snodgrass, he couldn’t contradict them. They would only have to keep
the gag in while they were passing through a settlement, or meeting
people. Then, too, they may have Bill so frightened that, even without
a gag, he daren’t shout an alarm to get himself rescued.”

They found out later that Noddy had tried both of these plans with
success, and so it was that though Cromley was observed to be bound and
gagged while on his horse, what Noddy and Jack said made this state of
affairs seem plausible.

They camped that night near a small but swift-running stream, and
before darkness settled they had taken from it some fish which made a
welcome addition to their food, for they had been obliged to live, in
the main, on canned stuff.

The next morning saw them on the way again, and they had their first
bit of good luck about ten o’clock. They passed through a small
mining settlement, and there they learned that a party answering to
the description of Noddy’s crowd had passed through about four hours
previously.

“One of their horses has gone lame,” said Tinny, who had been making
the inquiries. “They have to accommodate the pace of the swiftest to
the slowest-going animal. They don’t seem to have the money to buy more
horses. They’re almost at the end of their rope, boys!”

“Let’s push on fast and see if we can’t catch ’em before night!” cried
Ned.

But to this Mallison objected.

“We’ve got to think of our own horses,” he said. “They’ve been pretty
hard-pushed of late, and if we want them to stand up under the strain
we’ve got to be easy with them. If they go lame it’s all off as far as
the chase goes. Just a little patience, and we’ll have those rascals!”

“Besides, it’s near noon and we want to eat,” added Bob.

Accordingly, a halt was called at noon and the campfire made. They had
bought some supplies in the little settlement where they had got the
latest news of those of whom they were in pursuit, and by a stroke of
good luck they had secured a chicken, which Bob fried most appetizingly.

“Best thing you ever did, Chunky!” called out Mallison, as he leaned
back for a little rest after the meal.

“Glad you liked it,” was the modest rejoinder.

They were all taking a much-needed rest after their dinner, and the
horses were cropping some grass when a noise in the bushes back of Ned,
who was leaning against a rock, startled them all.

Almost as soon as the rustling made itself plain to the ears of the
travelers there was a snorting among the horses, and they appeared to
be much frightened.

“Maybe this is Noddy’s crowd!” exclaimed Bob.

“Our horses wouldn’t be afraid of other animals of the same kind,”
Tinny said. “I’m inclined to believe----”

But he never expressed his belief, for a moment later there was a loud
“Wuff!” and an immense grizzly bear lumbered out of the bushes and
started down the side of the hill along which the trail ran.

“Wow! Look at him! The king of the bears!” shouted Bob, making a grab
for his rifle that was near him.

Before the others could reach their weapons or before Bob could bring
his to a sight, the bear, with another “Wuff,” turned and made his
way back along his own trail faster than he had come down. He was an
exceedingly frightened bruin, it seemed.

The horses snorted and tried to bolt, but Mallison and Jerry were at
their heads instantly, quieting them, for they knew what it meant to be
without mounts in that region.

“Say, that bear actually ran away from us!” cried Ned, for the shaggy,
clumsy creature was out of sight in a few seconds.

“That’s what he did,” declared Tinny. “He didn’t know we were here. He
must have blundered down on us. The wind was blowing from him to us,
and the horses probably smelled him before he burst out of the bushes.
He didn’t scent us or he never would have come as close, for a grizzly
has an acute nose.”

“Would he have attacked us, do you think?” asked Bob.

“Not in a hundred years, if he could get away,” replied Tinny. “Of
course now and then grizzly or black bears will show fight if cornered,
or if they have cubs, but generally they see you first and make for the
tall timber. That’s where this one is headed.”

Indeed, the grizzly was now out of sight, though his odor must have
lingered in the air, for the horses were uneasy for some time afterward.

“Gosh! If I’d been a second quicker I could have popped him over and
we’d have had bear steaks,” lamented Chunky.

“Not much danger of you laying him out with one shot,” said Tinny.
“And if you had wounded him we might have had a nasty fight on our
hands. It’s as well he was frightened away as he was. And as for bear
steaks--well, the less said about them the better.”

“Aren’t they good eating?” asked the fat lad.

“Not to my notion,” was the reply. “They’re too rank. Indians may
relish them, but I don’t. A bear isn’t a very dainty feeder. He’s too
fond of carrion, and that doesn’t make for tasty flesh. I’m just as
glad Mr. Grizzly went.”

But it was many months before Bob ceased lamenting the fine chance he
had missed of bringing to earth a great grizzly bear--for the bear was
an immense one.

“Well, that little excitement will digest our meal,” remarked Ned,
when they had returned after going a little way up the mountain in a
fruitless attempt to catch another sight of bruin.

“Then let’s go!” suggested Jerry, and again they were on the trail
after the kidnapers of Bill Cromley.

It was approaching evening and they had gone on steadily. They had
passed through no more settlements, nor had they met other travelers
or miners of whom they might inquire concerning Noddy’s crowd. But
inasmuch as there had been no branch trail, it was assumed that those
of whom they were in pursuit were not far ahead of them.

And this belief was made very plain a half hour later when, as they
went down a slope, they saw four horsemen ascending the mountain on the
other side of the valley.

“Look! There they are!” cried Jerry, pointing.

“I believe you’re right!” exclaimed Tinny. “Wait until I take a look
through the glasses.”

He had his binoculars with him. Heretofore they had been used in
fruitless gazing at the trail ahead for a possible sight of those in
the lead. But no sooner had the miner put them to his eyes and focused
them, than he cried out:

“That’s Nixon’s gang all right, and Bill is there, sitting on his
horse! They see us, too!” he added quickly. “They’re going to make a
dash for it!”

Even as he spoke the Motor Boys could see, with their unaided eyes,
that there was some movement taking place in the ranks of the four
horsemen. They could be seen urging their steeds up the steep trail.

Suddenly one of the riders was observed to detach himself from the
others. He wheeled his animal about and came dashing down the trail in
the direction of the following party.

“It’s Bill! He’s escaping!” yelled Ned.




CHAPTER XXIV

THUNDER MOUNTAIN


For a moment or two after the sensational break for freedom made by
Bill Cromley, for it was indeed he, it appeared that Noddy and Jack, to
say nothing of Dolt Haven, might wheel and start in pursuit of him.

“But they’re thinking better of it!” reported Tinny, who was again
observing events through the glasses. “I guess they don’t dare come any
nearer us.”

This seemed to be the case, for the three horsemen, on seeing that
Cromley had a good start, turned about and went on up the rough trail
at the best speed they could make.

“It’s a good thing Bill’s bringing his horse with him,” remarked Jerry,
as the fugitive drew nearer. “We’d have had to take turns walking back,
only for that.”

Cromley’s features could not be made out yet, but he galloped steadily
nearer.

Desperate as Noddy must have been to kidnap the old man as he had
done, the bully did not go to extremes, and there was no attempt at
shooting. Neither Noddy, Jack nor Dolt displayed any weapons. And for
this Cromley’s friends were glad.

“There they go!” cried Ned, as he saw Noddy and his two companions
urging their steeds up the slope.

“Let them go,” advised Tinny. “We have Bill back, which was what we
were trying for, and we’ve got him before they had a chance to drag him
to Blue Rock. So far, we’ve beaten them at their own game!”

“Unless they scared the secret out of Bill before he got away,” said
Bob.

“We’ll soon know that,” remarked Jerry. “He’s coming on like a house
afire.”

This was very true. The mine foreman, though not an accomplished
horseman, was urging his steed on by shaking the bridle reins and
kicking the animal with his heels.

“They’ve taken the gag and ropes off him!” exclaimed Ned.

“Yes, they could do that in a wild country like this,” said Tinny.
“And, being unbound, Bill probably thought it was a good chance to
escape, especially when he looked back and saw us.”

On came the lone rider, finally to dash up in the midst of his friends
who so anxiously awaited him.

“Hello, Bill!” they greeted him.

“Hello, boys!” the old miner answered, somewhat breathlessly. “Gosh!
but I’m glad to get away from that crowd. I’d just about given up!”

“We hadn’t!” said Jerry, with a chuckle. “We were counting on rescuing
you soon, but you saved us the trouble. Are you all right?”

“Well, I’m as right as a man can be who’s been forced to ride day and
night for days, and part of that time gagged and bound on a horse,”
Cromley replied. “Say, I don’t care if I never see a saddle again!”

They could appreciate his feelings, mental and physical, as he slumped
from the back of his animal and limped stiffly about.

“I’ll have some coffee for you in a few minutes,” called Bob, as he
dismounted and began to unpack the campfire stuff of which he had
assumed charge. “We might as well lay over here for the night,” he
added.

“Yes, I guess so,” assented Tinny, having ascertained by a few
observations that it would make a fair camping site.

“I’ll be glad of a good cup of coffee,” murmured Bill Cromley, rubbing
his arms and legs to get rid of some of the stiffness.

“Did they treat you pretty mean?” asked Ned.

“As mean as they dared. Oh, but I’m glad to be back with you once
more.”

“Did you tell them the secret of Blue Rock--I mean where the treasure
chest went off the trail?” asked Ned.

“I did not!” was the emphatic rejoinder. “They kept pestering me all
the while, and they threatened all sorts of things when we should get
to the gully, which we were heading for, if I didn’t tell them. But I
let them threaten.”

“Then we may get the gold yet!” said Bob.

“Tell us what happened,” suggested Jerry, when a fire had been lighted
and Bob was getting supper, for night was falling.

“Well, they sneaked up on me and kidnaped me--that’s about all I can
say,” Bill answered. “It was that day you were all away. I had come to
the cabin to get some new drills for the mine when, the first I knew, I
was knocked out by a blow on the head.”

“That’s what they did to Hang Gow,” commented Ned.

“Um,” murmured the miner. “So that accounts for that Chinaman not
coming to help me. I wondered while they were taking me away what had
happened to him.

“Well, as I said, they sneaked up and attacked me suddenly. When I got
my senses back I was lying bound in the bottom of a wagon and riding
along. And, believe me, it was some rough ride! They had a gag in my
mouth so I couldn’t yell, and they had me tied tight.

“Well, they got me off to some wild place that night and said they’d
let me go if I’d tell them exactly how to get to the spot where the
treasure chest fell over. I knew then that this Dolt Haven was a
bluffer--a faker. He doesn’t know anything about it. I knew I had all
the cards in my hand, so I didn’t let out anything.

“That little professor came prancing up as though he were a six-footer
trying to help me once; but the gang easily got rid of him--took him
back into the forest, I guess.”

“Yes, and worse than that!” exclaimed Bob, and told Cromley what had
happened to Professor Snodgrass.

“You don’t say!” exclaimed the old miner. “Well, they are a mean bunch!
But to go back to what they did to me.

“They went on the next day, and from the way they hurried I knew they
must fear somebody--you, likely--would soon be trailing after them. To
make a long story short, they’ve been carting me about with them ever
since. They traded off their wagon for horses and made me get on this
one. Whenever they got to a settlement, or saw anybody coming, they
would bind me tighter than ever and stick that gag in my mouth.”

This much his friends had guessed, and Cromley confirmed their theories
of what had happened.

“Finally,” went on the miner, “they gave up trying to make me talk and
they began to circle back on a trail I knew would lead us to Blue Rock.
What they were going to do when they got there I didn’t know. But I
made up my mind I wasn’t going to give ’em a bit of information. What I
did know I was going to tell you boys.

“Well, we kept on and on until about half an hour ago I could see that
Noddy was uneasy. He kept looking back, and though I couldn’t hear
anything I suspected the chase was getting hotter.

“They had taken off my ropes and loosened the gag, so we could go
faster, I reckon. I heard Noddy say something about you coming. We were
going up hill when I looked back and saw you and made a dash for it.

“I was in fear every minute that one of them would send a bullet after
me--for they had guns--but nothing like that happened. And here I am!”
he concluded abruptly.

“And we’re glad to see you!” exclaimed Ned.

“No gladder than I am to be here,” commented Bill. “Oh, but I’m glad to
get off that horse. Whew!”

He moved stiffly about, his lameness seeming to be worse because of
the treatment he had received. But aside from this he was not harmed,
though, as he said, the food the kidnapers furnished was not of the
best.

“This is some meal!” exclaimed Bill, when they were all sitting about
the campfire, eating in the gathering darkness.

“Trust Chunky when it comes to the eats!” chuckled Jerry.

As there was now no special object in hurrying, and as Bill was still
very lame and stiff the next morning, it was decided to camp where they
were for a day or so, to allow the old miner to recover somewhat.

“Then we’ll get back to Leftover,” decided Tinny: “I want to see how
our mine is panning out.”

“Aren’t you going to have a try for the treasure chest at Blue Rock?”
asked Ned.

“Not now,” decided Tinny. “Later on, when we get the mine to going
well, you boys can prospect on that wild-goose chase if you want to.”

“Blue Rock isn’t so far from here,” observed the foreman. “It’s almost
as near to go around that trail as back the way you came.”

“Well, we’ll see,” was all Mallison would say. “We’ve got to make a
détour, anyhow, on account of the landslide. Did you see anything like
that in your travels, Bill?”

“Nary a landslide, though I had enough other troubles.”

Cromley, having brought away with him one of the kidnapers’ horses,
was as well mounted as his companions, and after two days spent in the
improvised camp it was decided to start back for Leftover. Tinny was
clearly anxious to see to his mining property, and the Motor Boys, too,
felt some anxiety concerning it.

The five adventurers, now in a much happier frame of mind than at any
time since the kidnaping had taken place, rode along at a leisurely
pace, for it was desired to spare the horses as much as possible.

It was toward the close of the second day of back travel, and they
were ambling along talking of various matters. One fruitful topic of
conversation was a surmise as to what had become of Noddy and his
companions.

The last seen of them was when they were hurrying away from the
pursuing party up the mountain after Bill had escaped.

“I don’t care if we never see them again,” remarked Ned.

“Me, either,” added Bob.

“I’d like to get square for what they did to me,” declared Cromley,
“but I reckon maybe I’d better let well enough alone. How’s Hang
Gow--was he much hurt?”

“No, just knocked out temporarily,” Tinny answered. “But in spite of
the fact that Noddy got away, I’m wondering whether we ought to have
him arrested. Such a crime oughtn’t to go unpunished. After we get the
mine to working I’m going to see the sheriff.”

“Noddy deserves all that can be given him,” said Jerry.

They were looking about for a good place to camp when they were
suddenly startled by a sound as of a great blast. This was followed by
a succession of rumbles.

“What’s that?” cried Ned, as he quieted his startled horse.

“Storm coming,” answered Tinny. “And a bad place for it, too.”

“Why?” asked Jerry.

“Because we’re on the west side of Thunder Mountain. You boys wanted to
know why it had that name. Well, you’re going to find out, I reckon,
and mighty soon, too! Come on--we’ve got to get to some kind of shelter
before it breaks!”

As he spoke there came a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a
terrific clap of thunder.




CHAPTER XXV

THE STORM


Prancing, and an inclination on the part of the horses to bolt and
run, kept the lads and their friends busy for a few moments after the
crash. There was no chance for the boys to ask Tinny what he meant by
his rather ominous words. But when the reverberations had died away,
echoing and reëchoing among the mountain peaks, Jerry spoke up and
called above the rush of wind:

“Is this a bad place to be in a storm?”

“There are worse places, only I don’t know ’em,” answered Tinny grimly.
“I’d a good bit prefer being on any side of Thunder Mountain but this
when the storm really bursts. But we’ll make the best speed we can, and
maybe we can get out of the danger zone.”

“What specially makes it so dangerous here?” asked Ned.

Before Tinny could answer there flashed another vivid spear of
lightning, followed by a crash louder than the first big one, and again
they had to hold their horses in check.

“He said when the storm _breaks_!” murmured Bob, who was bouncing about
on the back of his animal like a cork on troubled waters. “I wonder
what he calls this?”

“This isn’t anything--just the beginning,” Tinny answered. “And while I
don’t know exactly why this slope of Thunder Mountain is worse than the
others, I think it must be because of iron or some metallic ores here
more than anywhere else. I know that lightning strikes here oftener
than anywhere else. That’s why it has the name Thunder Mountain.”

“Lightning Mountain would be a better name,” said Jerry, as another
flash, vivid and menacing, shot across the low-lying clouds.

The jagged streak of electricity seemed to bury itself in the side of
the mountain not far from the party and there followed such a crash as
seemed to shake the very earth. The horses actually cowered down, too
frightened to run.

“That struck somewhere!” exclaimed Ned, in the silence that followed
the awful crash.

“I reckon it did,” said Cromley. “I’ve seen storms out here before, but
when it gets going and makes up its mind, this is going to put it all
over the worst I ever saw.”

“Well, if it’s going to get any worse hadn’t we better do something
more than talk about it?” asked Jerry.

“I’m looking for a place of shelter,” Tinny remarked. “The worst of it
is, though, that when there’s so much ore scattered about, one place is
as bad as another to attract the lightning. But come on.”

After those first few flashes of lightning and terrific crashes the
storm seemed to die away; but they all knew it was but a momentary
passing, as if to enable the elements to gather strength for a worse
outburst. However, even this brief respite gave them a chance to make
better time down the mountain trail, for the horses were less inclined
to throw their riders and gallop off by themselves.

The sun had begun to sink in the west some time before the first
signs of storm were noticed, and now, with the fading of day and the
overcasting of the sky with black clouds, the scene was fast darkening.
Only one thing was in favor of the travelers, and that was that the
trail at this point was broad and easy of travel, though it was steep.

“Is there any particular place you’re heading for?” asked Jerry, as he
urged his steed alongside that of Tinny Mallison.

“Yes,” was the answer. “About two miles from here there’s an old cabin
just off the trail. It was once owned by a mining company I invested
some money in. Invested was all it ever amounted to, for the claim
petered out. But the cabin still stands; or did several months ago
when I was last over this trail. If we can get there we can be well
sheltered and comparatively safe from lightning shocks.”

“Do you think there is any danger from lightning?” asked Jerry.

“There certainly is,” Tinny answered.

The comparative quiet that had prevailed for a few minutes was once
more broken by a low rumbling that told of distant thunder.

“Look out, boys! She’s going to break loose again!” called Ned,
clapping his heels against the side of his horse and sprinting forward.

His words had hardly died away before the vicious lightning again
hissed through the air like some gigantic whip swung by a Titanic
teamster, and what corresponded to the crack of the whip was the sharp
sound of the thunder.

That is all it was at first--a sharp crack, hardly louder than that a
high-powered rifle would have given forth. But it was followed with
terrifying rapidity by a great crash.

Cromley’s horse leaped to one side with such suddenness that the miner
was unseated, and some one would have been compelled to walk the
remainder of the journey had not Ned urged his own horse forward to
catch the runaway. For that is what the miner’s animal became as soon
as the saddle was empty.

“Good work, Ned!” cried Jerry, as the lad quieted the frightened animal.

“Are you hurt, Bill?” asked Tinny.

The old miner slowly rose, rubbed one leg and then the other.

“No, I reckon not,” he answered slowly. The old man was game, whatever
else he lacked. Slowly he got into the saddle again, and then he grimly
remarked, as the echoes of the thunder died away: “Guess I’d done
better to be tied to the horse again, same as I was when the Nixon
crowd had me.”

“You’ve got to keep a tight rein on your horse every time it lightens,”
said Tinny. “They’re sure to jump at each clap, and if you’re not ready
for ’em you’ll land on your neck. I wish we were at that cabin!”

The others felt the same way about it, and their uneasiness was not
lessened when they saw Tinny looking apprehensively up at the clouds
which were now thicker and blacker than ever.

“If the storm would break--I mean if the rain would come--it wouldn’t
be so bad,” Jerry said.

“What do you mean--not so bad?” asked Ned. “We’ll get drenched when it
starts--no umbrellas, no raincoats, nothing.”

“I mean there’ll be less danger from lightning when it starts to rain,”
went on the tall lad.

“Jerry is right,” Tinny added, as they moved forward again with
lightning playing about them and a continuous mutter of thunder at
times muffling their words. “Once the ground and trees are soaking
wet, it makes so many more natural paths for the lightning to take.
It diffuses itself all over gradually, instead of the tension being
relieved in one big gigantic crack. And if you’ve ever noticed it, your
nerves calm down in a thunderstorm as soon as the rain starts. It’s the
same way with animals. Our horses will be easier to manage as soon as
everything gets well wet.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” replied Bob. “We had lots of rain in France,
too.”

“Gosh, I should say so!” agreed Ned. “Never a day without a shower, as
I remember it.”

“Well, this is going to be more than a shower, and it’s coming pretty
soon,” observed Tinny. “However, we’ve only got about a mile more to go
and we’ll be at the old cabin. I only hope it’s still standing.”

“Is there room for the horses in it?” asked Bill.

“There used to be a shed back of the cabin where they kept the
animals,” Tinny replied. “Whew!” he cried. “This is going to be a bad
one!”

Following sharply on his words was a sheet of lightning that
temporarily blinded them, so vivid was it. Instinctively they all
reined in their horses.

The resultant clap of thunder veritably stunned them all, while a
sensation as of pins and needles pricked their hands and feet and ran
up along their spines, causing a queer sensation in their scalps.

Just ahead of them a great rock was rent in twain by the lightning bolt
which struck it, and the ground about them seemed to tremble. They had
actually felt the stunning effect of the shattering lightning.

“Whew! Smell the sulphur!” cried Bob.

The odor was noticeable in the air.

The wind had died down for a moment, but now it suddenly sprang into
being again, and with its howl came a curious pattering sound.

“Here comes the rain!” cried Tinny. “Now it will be better!”

Down came a great deluge of water. Ned, who was slightly in the lead,
urged his horse forward. The others were about to follow when they saw
Ned suddenly disappear from sight off the trail, as if he had fallen
into some hole.

“Ned! Ned!” cried Jerry. “What happened?”




CHAPTER XXVI

A BLUE ROCK SLIDE


Amid the silence that followed Jerry’s ringing cry--a silence that
came after that great crash--there was no answer from Ned. He seemed
absolutely to have vanished from the scene.

For a moment a sense of impending, if not actual, disaster held them
all motionless. Then Tinny cried:

“Come on! We’ve got to get Ned!”

But Jerry, swinging his horse across the trail, barred for an instant
the progress of Mallison.

“Wait!” shouted Jerry above the howling of the wind and the pattering
of the rain. “Don’t ride your horse there! The trail may have gone down
in a landslide!”

“That’s right!” Tinny answered. “Poor Ned!” All their hearts were heavy
with fear.

Bob and the mine foreman pulled back their horses when they saw Tinny
and Jerry dismounting.

“We’d better go up there--the edge of the place where Ned went over--on
foot,” said Jerry.

With the downpour of rain, the fierceness of the lightning and the
terrific force of the thunder seemed to be lessened. It was as though
the flashes and explosions had torn a hole in the sky to let the flood
down, and, having accomplished this, the electricity was held in
abeyance for a time. But in an instant all of them were drenched, so
torrential was the fall of rain.

“Hold the horses, Bob, while we go forward and look,” suggested Tinny,
handing the reins of his animal to the stout lad, while Jerry did the
same with Cromley.

Cautiously the two made their way down the rain-drenched trail to the
spot where Ned had last been seen. But in the fast-gathering blackness
they saw no cavern, no hole where the road had dropped away or where
it had been covered in a landslide. And the theory of a landslide lost
its plausibility when they recalled that they had heard no sound of
shifting rocks and trees.

Before them, winding its way down Thunder Mountain, was the trail, in
as good shape as that part which lay behind them, and over which they
had traveled since finding the old miner.

“What in the world happened?” murmured Jerry, in somewhat of a daze.
“Where did Ned disappear to?”

Tinny was about to answer that he did not know, or, at best, knew only
as much as Jerry could gather from what they saw, when above the roar
of the storm a voice suddenly hailed them.

“Hey! What’s the matter with you fellows? Why don’t you come in out of
the wet?” some one wanted to know.

“It’s Ned!” joyfully cried Jerry.

Then Tinny saw Ned standing in what seemed to be the entrance of a cave
in the side of the mountain. Back of the lad could be observed his
horse. Their position, snug and sheltered, was in grim contrast to that
of the others.

“Are you all right, Ned?” cried Jerry, his voice trembling from the
reaction on finding his chum safe.

“Right? Of course I am! Why didn’t you come in here? I thought you were
right behind me. It’s a dandy place, dry as a bone, and you can’t get
struck by lightning in here.”

“He’s right,” said Tinny. “And we’ll have more and worse lightning
soon, if this storm is like all the others on Thunder Mountain. Come on
back, Jerry. We’ll all go into that cave.”

Returning to Bob and Cromley, who had remained with the horses, Jerry
and Tinny soon explained that Ned was safe in a sheltering cave.

“Gosh, that’s good!” murmured Bob. “We can build a fire in there and
dry out--and eat!” he added, as a sort of afterthought.

“In a big cave, is he?” asked Cromley, as he climbed rather stiffly
into his saddle, for his recent fall had jarred him. “I didn’t know
there was a cave on this side of Thunder Mountain.”

“Neither did I,” replied Tinny. “I shouldn’t be surprised to find that
this cave had been uncovered by a landslide. I mean to say that the
cave was always there, of course, under the mountain, but the entrance
to it was blocked. A landslide would open the mouth.”

“We’ll soon find out,” said Jerry.

Through the rain, which seemed to come down harder than ever, they rode
over the edge of a little hill on the trail until they were in front of
the cave in which Ned had taken shelter.

“Come on in--it’s fine!” cried Ned.

Tinny looked about before he would permit this, however. He wanted to
see if his theory would prove, and he wanted to make sure that it would
be safe.

“That’s what happened here,” he said. “There’s been a landslide within
the last day or two. It carried away the dirt, rock and trees and
bushes that were in front of the entrance to this cave. I don’t believe
any one knew of its existence before.”

“I saw it, all of a sudden, as I was riding along,” explained Ned, as
his companions rode in--for the entrance was high enough to permit
this, after Mallison had signified that it seemed safe enough. “I
thought this was one of the shelter places you spoke of, Tinny, and I
supposed you were right behind me.”

“No,” said the mine owner, “I never knew about this. It’s a new one to
me. Where I thought we could get shelter is at the old cabin less than
a mile from here. But this will do very well--better in fact. There’s
no danger from lightning in here.”

As he spoke there was another flash, like the terrifying ones that
had snapped about before the rain came, and a great crash of thunder
reverberated down the mountain slopes.

“It’s doing its best to get at us, though,” remarked Jerry, as he slid
out of the rain-soaked saddle, an example followed by the others.

“It can’t get in here,” chuckled Ned. “Say, isn’t this a great place,
though? It’s a made-to-order barn, house and everything. Get the
saddles off and we can build a fire. There’s a lot of dry wood.” He
indicated some off to one side. Just enough of the fast-disappearing
daylight, gloomy as it was, remained to show the heap of wood. It
seemed to have been deposited there by some subsiding flood, and when
the travelers took out their flashlights and pressed the switches, in
the gleams it could be seen that once the cave had held water. The
marks of the different depths, or levels, were visible on the rocky
walls.

“Now we can have a meal,” remarked Bob, as he began to loosen the
pack he transported on his horse. Each one carried part of the camping
outfit, consisting of blankets, food, and cooking utensils. “Will it be
safe to make a fire in here?” he asked.

“Why not?” inquired Jerry. “There’s nothing much to burn.”

“I thought maybe the smoke would smother us.”

“There’s a good draft in here,” declared Ned. “The air is good and
fresh. Go on, Chunky, light up. Some hot coffee will go to the right
spot.”

The saddles were taken off and the horses tethered further back in
the cavern. Its extent was not even guessed at, but it seemed large.
Cromley found some dried grass, probably carried in and left there when
water had entered the cave, and this served as fodder for the horses,
the animals seeming to relish it.

Stripping off most of their wet garments, the refugees gathered about
the genial blaze Bob started, and while their clothes were hanging
about on pinnacles of rock to dry, a meal was gotten ready.

As Ned had observed, there was a good draft in the cave, and the smoke
went up, losing itself in the vastness of the vaulted roof. Near the
entrance the wind blew in, bringing rain with it. Also the sound of
the storm could be heard.

While the coffee was boiling Jerry and Tinny, wrapping blankets about
them, blankets that had been kept dry inside the rubber-covered saddle
roll, walked to the cave entrance.

As they reached it and looked out into the almost complete darkness,
they were startled by a great flash of lightning. In its glare they saw
a strange sight.

Across the trail was the side of a hill, and as the two looked part of
this hill seemed to separate and slide down, being loosened by the rain
or because lightning shattered some holding rock.

“Another landslide!” cried Tinny. “I’m glad we aren’t out there!”

“Look! Look!” shouted Jerry. “See the blue rock! Blue rock, Tinny!”

He pointed to a mass of earth and stones sliding down into a gulch, and
in the vivid glare of the lightning it could be seen that the rock was
as blue as indigo!




CHAPTER XXVII

IN DIRE PERIL


Darkness, more black because of the momentary bright glare, settled
down over everything outside the cave. And the rain, that had ceased
for a little while just before that loud crash, again pattered down.

“What’s the matter out there?” called Ned, who was helping Bob with the
meal at the campfire in the cave.

“Another landslide--a small one,” Tinny answered, as he and Jerry
walked in from the mouth of the cavern.

“Is it headed this way?” asked Cromley.

“Didn’t seem to be,” the mine owner answered.

“What got you all excited then, Jerry?” asked Bob, looking in the
coffee pot to see if the beverage was boiling.

“I saw blue rock,” the tall lad replied. “Blue rock--you know--where
the treasure chest was lost!”

“Is that so?” came interestedly from Cromley. “Come to think of it, we
must be somewhere near the place where the stage went over. We’ll take
a look in the morning.”

“I don’t believe it will do you any good,” stated Tinny. “You know my
opinion about that treasure chest--it’s a dream--a wild tale like lots
of others going the rounds. Still, don’t let me hold you back--try to
get it if you can.”

“Can’t do anything until morning,” observed Jerry. “The storm’s worse
than ever outside. Ned, you stumbled into the right place when you
found this cave.”

“It’s better than the abandoned mine cabin would have been,” added
Tinny. “We have shelter for the horses here, and there’s no danger from
lightning.”

“And from the way it sounds outside it’s striking all over,” said the
mine foreman, as one loud, terrifying crack succeeded another, some
even seeming to shake the cavern.

However, they were safe inside, and no better shelter could be
imagined. The cave was large and airy. There was even some fodder, such
as it was, for the horses. And with a fire to dry them and their soaked
garments, with food and hot drink, the plight of the travelers was much
improved over what it had been.

“And the best thing about it--or one of the best--is that Noddy Nixon
won’t bother us here,” stated Ned.

“No, he isn’t likely to pay us a call,” agreed Jerry.

They were warm and comfortable now, and they sat on the blankets about
the crackling fire and ate.

“We’ll spend the night here,” said Jerry, as he went over to see how
quickly some of his garments were drying. They were still very damp.

“Yes, we won’t venture out until morning,” decided Tinny. “The storm
will be over then.”

“It’s raging and tearing around now like it never would end,” observed
Cromley, as he hobbled to the mouth of the cave to look out. “It’ll be
worse before it’s better, in my opinion,” he added, as he came back to
the blaze.

“Did you see anything of the blue rock?” Jerry inquired.

“Can’t say I did,” was the answer. “There’s a regular river pouring
down the side of the hill across from this cave. Looks like it might
wash away the trail.”

“Yes, it will not be easy going back,” said Tinny. “This storm is one
of the worst I have ever known, and we’ll have hard going.”

“Thunder Mountain is living up to its name,” observed Ned, as another
burst of the sky artillery made the ground tremble.

There was nothing to do but wait for the passing of nature’s outburst,
and with what good spirits they could summon the party prepared to
remain in the cave until morning.

They had their blankets, there was food enough, plenty of coffee, and,
best of all, they were within a secure shelter. At first they felt a
little awed at being in a cave where, perhaps, never the foot of a
white man had been set before. But this feeling soon wore off and,
tired with their day’s journey, all soon fell into a deep sleep.

There was little use to mount guard. No one was likely to disturb them,
for if travelers were abroad on the trail in all the storm, it was
hardly possible that they would come to the cave, which had only been
opened in the last day or so.

None of the party had any one to fear but Noddy Nixon and his two
cronies, and Jerry and his companions took it for granted that the
bully was far enough off by this time.

When the storm ceased, none in the cave knew. But it was over by
morning, and when Jerry, the first to awake, looked toward the cave
entrance he saw the golden yellow sunlight flashing on the opposite
slope.

“Good news, fellows!” he cried, leaping up and tossing aside his
blankets. “We’ve got a fair day ahead of us.”

One after another they awakened, stretched, and sat up.

“Wow, but I’m stiff!” groaned Ned. “I feel like Rip Van Winkle must
have felt after his twenty years on the mountain.”

“I’ve got a touch of rheumatics myself,” complained Cromley.

“You’ll be all right when you have some hot coffee,” said Bob.

“For once in your life, Chunky, you have contributed a consoling
thought,” Jerry chuckled. “So get busy with the mocha beverage.”

There was a spark of fire in the ashes, and this Bob soon coaxed to a
blaze, on which more of the dry wood in the cave was piled.

Soon the appetizing aroma of breakfast was wafted through the cave,
and it seemed to stir memories in the horses, for one of them whinnied
suggestively.

“They’re hungry and thirsty,” said Cromley. “What say I turn them out
of the cave? They can get a drink, anyhow. There ought to be any number
of puddles of water along the trail.”

“Yes, and maybe they can find a bit of grass,” suggested Tinny. “Go
ahead, Bill. We’ve got to treat our animals well, for we must depend on
them for taking us back to Leftover. But be sure they don’t stray.”

“I’ll tie them well,” Bill promised.

He took the animals out while Bob and Jerry got breakfast, which was a
simple enough meal. And with the eating of it and the moving about to
exercise stiffened muscles, all felt better.

“Now we’ll take a look outside,” suggested Tinny, as they rose from
the circle about the campfire where they had eaten. “That is, if our
clothes are dry.”

This proved to be the case, and, donning their garments, the travelers
fared forth from the cave to see what had happened in the night that
they had spent in comparative peace.

“There isn’t much left of the trail!” cried Tinny, pointing.

Indeed, a little way beyond where they had turned in to enter the cave
there was scarcely the semblance of a road. A mountain torrent, formed
by the heavy rain, had washed down the middle of the trail, making a
deep gash--a miniature canyon in which even now a little water still
trickled.

Cromley had tethered the horses near a natural pool at which the
animals had slaked their thirst, and now they were quietly cropping
some scanty grass that grew on the mountain side.

“Where’s this blue rock you were telling about, Jerry?” asked Ned, as
they stood for a moment near the entrance to the cave.

“It was right over there, a bit to the right,” answered the tall lad.
“I only saw it by a lightning flash. Maybe it was carried down into
the gulch.”

“Let’s take a look,” proposed Bob. “Is this anything like the place
where the stage coach went over?” he asked Cromley.

“Well, it is, and it isn’t,” was the somewhat puzzling answer. “It’s
about here, but the trail is different, somehow.”

“You must remember,” said Tinny, “that the accident happened a
number of years ago. Since then there have been changes made in the
trail--changes by man and changes by nature, such as happened last
night. As I remember it, the old stage coach trail ran along up there,
Bill,” and he pointed to an upper shelf of rock which wound around a
spur of the mountain.

“Yes,” agreed the old miner, “that’s where it was. And that’s the same
color of blue rock, too!” he suddenly cried, pointing in the direction
indicated by Jerry as the place where he had seen that indigo hue.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure this is the place. But what a change!”

Well might he say that, for the havoc of the storm was great.

“Let’s take a look,” proposed Ned.

“Be careful,” warned Tinny, as the boys walked down the gashed trail,
away from the cave.

“Oh, come with us, Tinny,” urged Ned.

Mallison laughed, but set off after the rest of the party.

As they approached the place where Jerry had seen in the glare of
lightning the landslide the night before, they all observed some blue
rocks scattered about. It was as though some great shell had exploded,
scattering the oddly colored stones.

“I don’t believe we’ll ever find a treasure chest here,” Ned was
saying, but his words were lost in a rumble and roar that filled the
air. Instinctively they all glanced up toward the top of the mountain.

Trees, bushes and a mass of earth seemed slowly moving.

“Look out!” yelled Jerry.

“There’s going to be another landslide!” cried Tinny.

“And it’s coming this way!” shouted Bob.

A moment later they were all in peril of their lives as a mass of the
mountain, showing blue in the sun, slid toward them.




CHAPTER XXVIII

A DISCOVERY


Just what happened neither the Motor Boys nor the others knew exactly.
Nor did they take any note of the order in which for the next few
moments some surprising things took place. They all remembered up to
the point where Bob yelled something about the landslide coming their
way. Then all was confusion.

For not only did the landslide come their way, but it came directly
over them, overwhelming them; and only for the fact that the horses
had been tethered some distance away from where the blue rock started
to slide, they, also, would have been carried down the side of the
mountain.

“Here she is!” yelled Jerry, and the next instant he and the others
were carried away.

Down the mountain they went, being pushed ahead of the landslide
itself, and it was this alone that saved them from instant death. The
slide of that peculiar blue rock had started perhaps half a mile up
Thunder Mountain. As it gathered weight and momentum it pushed ahead
of it sections of earth, with rocks, trees and bushes.

The Motor Boys, with Bill and Tinny, had been standing on the edge of
the trail which was gashed into ridges and furrows by the rain and
landslide of the night before. And the section of ground on which they
were standing was carried along, pushed as an engine pushes a string of
freight cars ahead of it.

Had the motion of the landslide been regular it would not have been so
dangerous, but it was far from even. Like the undulations of the sea,
it moved up and down, shifting this way and that, making the boys and
the two men dizzy and ill with the peculiar motion.

“I guess it’s all up with us!” muttered Cromley.

“Let’s see if we can’t get out of the way!” cried Ned.

He started to run to one side, across the path of the slide, but he had
only taken a few steps before an undulation of the ground threw him
down. Bob, who had started to follow Ned, was in a like predicament.

“We’ve got to help them!” shouted Tinny to Jerry.

These two were a little distance from the lads who had fallen. But
before they could reach them to give aid a mass of bushes, torn loose
from the mountainside where they had been growing for years, swept
Tinny, Jerry and Bill off their feet.

They were all down now, lying or sitting on the mass of earth that was
being pushed ahead of the landslide.

The main slide was gathering more stones, rocks and trees in its path
as it worked down the side of the mountain, but, as yet, the largest
mass of débris was some distance above the boys.

All about them, above, below, and on either side, were patches of blue
clay and blue rock, which gave the name to this particular locality.
But, mingled with all this, was a great quantity of grass roots and
soft bushes, so that the elasticity of this vegetation helped to
protect those in peril.

“Can’t we do something?” cried Bob, in desperation. He dug his hands
into the shifting soil until he broke his finger nails, but nothing
availed to hold him back. The others were doing the same thing,
striving desperately to save themselves from what seemed certain death.

Faster and faster the slide came careening down Thunder Mountain. There
were rumblings and roarings almost as terrifying as the thunder and
lightning of the night before.

“This is fierce, Tinny!” gasped Jerry, as a big rock narrowly missed
the head of the tall lad.

“It sure is!” was the gloomy answer, as they slid along together, like
passengers on some grotesque, gigantic escalator. “Thunder Mountain is
living up to its name!”

Jerry was about to make some reply, but suddenly they were all
overwhelmed with soft dirt, brushwood and bushes, together with a patch
of young trees. A quick shift in a part of the slide had sent them head
over heels into a gully, and then had thrown down on top of them this
mixed mass.

For several seconds there was ominous silence, and an onlooker in a
place of safety might reasonably have supposed it was all over with the
Motor Boys.

But, as if in a daze, Jerry gradually found himself breathing. Then,
though there was a strange sense of an oppressive weight, he managed to
move and found that he was gradually freeing himself.

About the same time, and one after another, the others in the party
found that they were not even seriously hurt. The old miner managed to
wriggle out from beneath a mass of soft, blue earth. He was followed by
Ned and Bob. Jerry staggered to his feet, shook himself as a dog does
on coming from the water, thereby dislodging from him a lot of gravel
and dirt.

“Where’s Tinny?” asked Bob, in a strained voice, as he shook his head
to get rid of a lot of dirt in his ears.

“I don’t know,” Jerry started to say, but the voice of the mine owner
interrupted him.

“Here I am--a little winded but still in the ring!” cried Mallison.
His face that he thrust out from the center of an uprooted bush was
bleeding, and at first the boys thought he had been seriously hurt. But
he wiped the blood off with a dirty hand, thereby making his face look
worse, but proving that the cuts were only superficial.

Then, slowly, staggering, limping, sore and bruised, but whole in limb
though not exactly sound in wind, they managed to stand on what seemed
solid ground--a great shelf of rock. All about them was a mass of
débris deposited by the landslide. There were hills and hollows, mounds
and gullies, great cracks and fissures in the bluerock-strewn earth.

“I guess the worst is over,” observed Ned.

“I hope so,” murmured Jerry. “If there’s any more to come I don’t want
to be in it.”

“Look where we came down!” exclaimed Bob, pointing upward.

They had been carried down the side of Thunder Mountain for nearly a
thousand feet, the advance guard, so to speak, of one of the worst
landslides in that part of the country. Only because the slide had
pushed them ahead of it, surrounding them with soft bushes which acted
as a screen, had they been able to live through it.

They looked about them in a daze. And it was still in a daze that Bob
looked at some object resting on its side near a great blue rock. It
was an object that caused him to look a second time and then a third.
And after that he cried in a hoarse voice:

“The treasure chest! There it is! Fellows, we’ve found it!”

He pointed a trembling finger at a small, but strong, wooden box which
lay amid the débris brought down the slope of Thunder Mountain by the
landslide.




CHAPTER XXIX

TO THE RESCUE


Bob’s shout drew the attention of all his comrades to what he
indicated, and at the words “treasure chest” a curious look came over
the face of Tinny Mallison.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed, as if he did not want to believe. “The
treasure chest? Impossible!”

“Well, what is it then?” asked Bob, and he could not keep a note of
triumph out of his voice. “If that isn’t a strong box for gold I’ll eat
my hat.”

Tinny Mallison was again going to say “impossible,” but as he brushed
the dust and dirt from his eyes and saw more clearly he began to
believe that, after all, there might be more than a dream to this
strange story.

“Bill, is that the kind of chest in which the gold went down the gulch
with the stage coach and horses?” asked Jerry, as they moved cautiously
toward the object amid the blue rocks.

They walked with care as they did not want to start another landslide.
But the shifting of the mountain seemed to have ceased, at least for
the time being.

“That’s the same kind of a chest they used to carry on the stage
coaches years ago,” affirmed Bill. “Of course, I can’t say that this is
the same one that went over into the gulch, but----”

“We’ll soon make sure!” cried Ned.

“Careful!” cautioned Tinny, as he saw the boys making their way over
the torn ground toward the object of such intense interest. “Don’t take
another coast down the mountain.”

They soon found, however, that the shift of earth, rocks, trees and
bushes, brought about by the great amount of rain which had fallen,
was, for a time at least, over. Though there was no path to follow and
though they had to scramble over tree trunks, uprooted bushes, great
masses of earth and jagged rocks, they managed to reach the place where
the wooden chest was partly imbedded in the débris.

For a few seconds they remained in a mute circle about the box, looking
down at it. What a story the chest could tell! How many years had it
lain undiscovered with its wealth of precious, yellow metal--provided,
of course, that it was the treasure chest? What secrets did it hold? If
it could but speak would it reveal the last hours of the unfortunate
stage coach driver who went to his death with his horses when the
vehicle careened over the side of the gulch?

These, and many other thoughts, crowded into the minds of the Motor
Boys as they surveyed the chest.

It may be questioned whether either Tinny or the old miner had any such
romantic ideas. As a matter of fact, Cromley was occupied in searching
the innermost recesses of his mind, trying to remember whether the
chest of his story was the same as this one so unexpectedly discovered.

“Well, let’s find out about it and end the agony!” proposed Jerry at
length, with a short laugh. “Let’s break open this box.”

“It’s the only way to find out,” observed Ned. “But it looks like a
pretty strong box, and we haven’t even a tack hammer.”

“It’ll be pretty well rotted by this time,” said Cromley. “It’s lain in
the earth a long time; rain and snow have beat upon it. A heavy rock
ought to break in the top, easy. Let me have a go at it!”

With the help of the boys and Tinny, Cromley lifted the chest out from
its bed in the earth and blue rocks. The color was peculiar, but the
adventurers did not stop to comment upon this or seek its cause. All
they cared about was to find out whether the strong box held any gold.

“This wasn’t the place where the coach went over,” said the miner, as
he looked up the side of the mountain. “It was miles from here.”

“Then what brings the chest here?” asked Ned.

“The landslide shifted a lot of other things besides this chest,” was
Tinny’s opinion. “It’s probably been buried deep for many years. That’s
why it was never found. One landslide may have covered it from sight.
This one brought it into view again. That’s the secret, I guess. But
I’m not yet willing to admit that this is a treasure chest, boys. I
think it came off some stage coach but----”

“Open it, Bill!” cried Jerry. “We’ll show Tinny what’s inside. Open it!”

“’Twon’t be much of a job,” the old miner cried, as he poised a sharp
rock. “It’s pretty rotten, that wood. A wonder it held together as long
as it did.”

With all his force Cromley brought the stone down on top of the chest,
which was of wood, strengthened with bands and strips of iron. The lid
was secured by two heavy padlocks, and though they were much rusted
they might have resisted the efforts of the treasure-hunters for some
time, as they had no tools to work with. The miner’s plan was the only
feasible one.

With a crash the stone struck the top of the wooden lid, and the old
miner’s guess as to the rottenness of the wood was well founded, for
his stone went half way through.

A cloud of dust from the punky, rotten wood arose in the sunlight.
Cromley put his hands in the hole made by the stone and pulled up the
jagged pieces of wood. They were so rotted away that there were no
splinters. In another instant the interior of the chest was revealed.

The eyes of the Motor Boys, as well as those of Tinny and the old man,
rested on several canvas sacks arranged in layers and tiers inside the
box.

“It looks like treasure, all right!” shouted Bob.

“I’m beginning to believe so myself!” admitted Tinny.

The old miner lifted out one of the sacks. It was in good condition,
the canvas not having rotted away. Around the neck of the bag, as
around the neck of all the bags in the chest, was a thong secured by
sealing wax. This Cromley chipped away. Then he cut the thong and
unwound it. Thrusting in his hand he withdrew it, and, resting on his
palm, glowing in the sunlight, was a mass of gold dust!

“We’ve found it!” yelled Bob, dancing about.

“It’s the treasure chest all right!” admitted Tinny. “Boys, I take it
all back.”

“Who says we can’t find gold?” shouted Ned.

“Maybe there’s only one bag of gold,” suggested the cautious Jerry.
“The other sacks may contain stones.”

“We’ll look!” decided Tinny.

Quickly the remaining bags were opened. Each one held gold in the form
of coarse dust or little pellets and nuggets. There was a fair-sized
fortune in the old box.

“It’s the treasure chest of Blue Rock, all right!” declared Cromley.
“Luck’s with us, boys!”

It was impossible to compute, except roughly, the value of the find,
but a glance showed enough gold to make a big amount for each one. That
they would share alike was a foregone conclusion.

“We’d better get this to a safe place,” said Tinny, after the first
wild enthusiasm had cooled. “And we’d better see if we can get back to
where we left our horses. I hope they haven’t been swept away by the
landslide.”

Carrying as many of the sacks as they could, they scrambled up the
débris-covered side of the mountain to the spot in front of the cave
in which they had spent the night. To their delight, they found their
horses safe. The slide had not reached them, nor had it disturbed the
cavern.

“We’ll make this our headquarters, and bring the rest of the gold up
here,” suggested Tinny.

Cromley, being lame, was tired out and could not scramble down the
mountain and up again, but the others went.

The last of the precious metal had been stowed in the cave and the
adventurers were about to sit down outside to rest when a figure came
staggering down the trail. It was the figure of a man, dirty and with
torn clothes, his face and hands covered with mud and blood. His head
was tied up in a bloody rag, and altogether he was the most forlorn
specimen of humanity the party had seen since the war in France.

“Water! Water!” he hoarsely gasped, as he sank exhausted on a stone.

“Why, it’s Dolt Haven!” cried Ned.

“So it is,” gasped Jerry. “What’s the matter? What happened?” he asked,
as Bob gave the suffering man a drink from a tin cup.

“It was the landslide,” muttered Dolt. “It caught us all. Noddy and
Jack are buried back there! I managed to get out, but I couldn’t free
them. I said I’d go for help. I--I got this far, but----”

“Where are they? Tell us! We’ll save them!” cried Jerry. “Get ready,
fellows,” he added. “We’ve got to go to the rescue!”




CHAPTER XXX

PAY DIRT


Dolt Haven seemed unable to answer for a few moments. Cromley gave
him another drink of water, and then the man was able to gasp out
directions for finding Noddy and his crony who, it seemed, were partly
buried under a mass of rock, trees and dirt about half a mile away.

“We’ll do what we can,” offered Jerry, as he started off, followed by
the others. And then Ned expressed a doubt that was in the minds of all
when he said:

“Suppose this is a trick to get us away from the gold in the cave so
they can sneak around and make off with it. Hadn’t one of us better
stay on guard?”

Tinny considered this for a moment. Ned had voiced his thought apart
from Dolt, who was slowly walking along with Cromley, to show the place
where Noddy and Jack were caught.

“I think Dolt is telling the truth,” said the mine owner. “No man would
injure himself the way he is injured just to put over a fake story.
Besides, we’ll take him with us, and if there is any crooked work we’ll
hold him for a hostage.”

Dolt seemed to guess that something like this was afoot, for as he
limped along he said:

“You needn’t be afraid--we’re through. We played a rotten trick on
Bill, here, and I hope he forgives me. But we’re through! If ever I get
back East again I’ll never have any more to do with Noddy Nixon or Jack
Pender. They’re crooks, that’s what they are. I thought it was a square
game they were playing, even when they kidnaped you,” and he looked at
Cromley. “I know better now.”

This settled it, and, leaving the gold well hidden in the cave, they
hastened to the place where Noddy and Jack had been caught under the
landslide--a different one from that which had revealed the treasure
chest.

It needed but a glance to show that Haven’s story was true. Noddy
and Jack were in great danger. Both had been struck on the head and
partially stunned, which made them unable to help themselves. And Haven
was so weak from loss of blood and so unnerved from the shock that he
was of little value as a rescuer.

With pieces of wood and tree limbs, for they had no shovels, the
rescuers dug, pried, pushed, and pulled until they had lifted or cast
aside most of the débris that covered Jack and Noddy. As in the case
of themselves, some interlocking tree branches and bushes, forming an
arch over the twain, had alone saved them from being crushed to death.
As it was, they were badly bruised, scratched, and cut, but no bones
were broken.

“Whew!” gasped Noddy, as he was pulled out. “That was awful! Who’d you
get to help us, Dolt?”

He appeared dazed, and evidently did not know his rescuers. But when he
saw the Motor Boys, Bill, and Tinny and realized that it was to them he
owed, perhaps, his life, as did Jack Pender, the bully had the grace to
blush.

“You fellows need help and a doctor, I should say,” observed Tinny.
“There’s some sort of settlement about five miles from here. We’ll do
what we can for you until help comes.”

“Who’s going to get help?” gasped Dolt Haven. “I can’t--I’m all in!”

“I’ll go,” offered Tinny. “I know the roads best,” he said, as Jerry
was about to speak. “I can go more quickly.”

In about three hours a wagon was brought up the trail and the three
conspirators, who really were sorely in need of medical attention, were
taken away. The reaction after their rescue seemed to be too much for
them, and they were all in a fainting condition as they were laid in
the wagon.

That was the last the Motor Boys saw of Noddy Nixon and his two
companions for a long time. It was decided that it was not worth while
to prosecute them for kidnaping Cromley.

While getting assistance for Noddy, Jack, and Dolt, Tinny also engaged
a wagon to come and get him and his friends, and to transport the gold.
Nothing was said of the finding of the treasure chest, it being given
out that the sacks of gold were merely some specimens of ore taken from
a prospect the party was interested in.

It was learned that Noddy and his two companions were making their way
toward what they believed to be the location of Blue Rock when the
landslide caught them. Dolt had, by good luck, merely stumbled upon the
party at the cave, as he had no knowledge that they were there.

“Well, it sure does seem good to be back,” observed Jerry the next
day, as, lame and stiff, weary and worn, they approached the cabin at
Leftover. “I wonder how Hang Gow is getting along?”

“And I wonder if anything’s left of our mine,” said Tinny. “It seems a
month since I last saw it.”

“There’s Hang Gow now!” exclaimed Ned, as the Chinese cook came from
the cabin. At the sight of his master and friends the Celestial gave
vent to a shrill cackling laugh and cried:

“Glub soon leddy! Glub alle sammee leddy soon lite quick!”

He vanished into his kitchen, from which soon issued a rattling of
pots and pans that argued well and which brought a smile of peace and
happiness to the face of Bob.

The bags of gold were unloaded from the wagon, the driver paid and sent
away, and then the Motor Boys, Tinny and Bill breathed freely. They had
brought their treasure home.

Out of the cabin, in the sunset glow of the evening, strolled Professor
Snodgrass. He saw the sacks piled on a bench. Springing toward one he
cried:

“Oh, you found it! You found it, didn’t you? Where was it?”

“What--the treasure?” asked Bob. “Well, it was in the chest at Blue
Rock, but----”

“Treasure! I wasn’t speaking of treasure!” cried the little scientist.
“I mean this _pseudotinea_--it is a bee moth--one of the rarest in this
country!” and from a sack of gold he caught up a small butterfly with
which he disappeared into the cabin.

“Well, wouldn’t that freeze your ice-cream!” cried Bob. “Here we come
back after a wonderful trip--been gone nearly a week and find a
million dollars’ worth of gold--and all the professor cares about is a
bug that happens to light on a bag of nuggets! Can you beat it?”

“We can’t--and we’ll not try,” remarked Ned.

Bob was wrong, however, about there being a million dollars’ worth of
gold in the treasure chest of Blue Rock. There was a large sum, though,
and Bill Cromley was given his full share when the division was made.
For, after so many years, it was found impossible to trace the real
owners of the treasure.

Hang Gow’s wonderful meal made them all feel better, and even Professor
Snodgrass when he got over his rapture at finding the _pseudotinea_
condescended to partake of a little. He looked about the table at his
friends--the glow of health having replaced the pallor of his face that
had been so noticeable when he first came to Leftover--and then he
remarked casually:

“Where have you been all day?”

“All day!” shouted Jerry, with a laugh. “Don’t you remember that we
went off nearly a week ago to rescue Bill? The kidnapers took him--the
same ones that bound you. Noddy Nixon----”

“Oh, yes, I do seem to remember something about it,” said the
professor, in dreamy tones. “But I have been so busy with my----” His
voice trailed off, his eyes were fixed on something crawling up the
wall, and, making a dive for it, he captured another bug.

“There’s no use telling him anything,” decided Ned, and the others
agreed with this.

A good night’s rest put them all in fine shape the next morning. Tinny
was making arrangements to send the treasure to the nearest bank for
safe-keeping when a shout arose out at the mine shaft.

“What’s that?” cried Jerry.

“I hope no accident,” murmured Tinny.

They were reassured a moment later when one of the men came rushing in,
his face alight with joy, and, as he held out some specimens, he cried:

“Pay dirt, boss! Pay dirt! We’ve struck the richest vein I ever saw!
Leftover is going to run five thousand dollars to the ton!”

“Hurray!” cried Tinny.

“Hurray!” shouted the Motor Boys.

Professor Snodgrass looked out of the room where he kept his specimens.

“Did you see another _pseudotinea_?” he asked, blinking through his
spectacles.

“No,” answered Jerry softly, and the little scientist went back to his
notebooks and specimens.

Of course the streak of pay dirt, or ore, uncovered in Leftover did not
assay five thousand dollars to the ton, or anything like that. But the
mine did prove valuable, and the Motor Boys telegraphed home the good
news together with word of the finding of the treasure chest of Blue
Rock.

“And, now that our adventures are over and Thunder Mountain seems
to have settled down, I think we can give our whole attention to
mining--that’s what we came out here for,” said Ned one day, about a
week after they had received word that Noddy Nixon and his cronies had
gone back East.

“You said it!” agreed Jerry. “The folks at home were complaining that
we couldn’t settle down after the war. Well, we’ll show ’em!”

“That’s what!” added Bob. “I could live here forever--that is, as long
as Hang Gow cooks the way he does.” And then he had to dodge a chunk of
dirt thrown at him by Ned.

So, having accompanied the lads through the dangers and adventures of
helping Tinny to develop Leftover and having been with them on their
quest of the treasure chest, we shall take leave of the Motor Boys.


THE END




[Illustration: Polly says “JELL-O for me”]

    If cast upon a desert isle
      Like Crusoe long ago,
    How dull the diet soon would be
      How jaded you would grow!

    Your gun would get you meat enough,
      Your line would catch your fish,
    But what a hunger you would have
      For some nice snappy dish.

    Then just suppose one sunny day,
      While striding on the beach,
    You’d hear your jolly Polly give
      A most delightful screech.

    And this is what old Pol would say--
      For he’s a jolly fellow--
    “I don’t want crackers, no-sir-ee,
      When I can feast on Jell-O.

    “We’ve lots of nuts on this here isle;
      Go pick ’em, Mr. Crusoe,
    We’d like to eat a good dessert,
      Get busy and we’ll do so.”

There are six pure fruit flavors of Jell-O: Strawberry, Raspberry,
Lemon, Orange, Cherry, Chocolate. Every child wants the little book,
“Miss Jell-O Gives a Party,” and we will send it free upon request, but
be sure your name and address are plainly written.


_America’s most famous dessert_

[Illustration:

    JELL-O
    THE JELL-O COMPANY, Inc.
    Le Roy, N. Y.
    Bridgeburg, Ont.


    _Reprinted by
    permission of
    John Martin’s Book,
    the Child’s Magazine_
]




THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES

BY CLARENCE YOUNG

_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid_

[Illustration]


  THE MOTOR BOYS
  _or Chums Through Thick and Thin_

  THE MOTOR BOYS OVERLAND
  _or A Long Trip for Fun and Fortune_

  THE MOTOR BOYS IN MEXICO
  _or The Secret of the Buried City_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ACROSS THE PLAINS
  _or The Hermit of Lost Lake_

  THE MOTOR BOYS AFLOAT
  _or The Cruise of the Dartaway_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE ATLANTIC
  _or The Mystery of the Lighthouse_

  THE MOTOR BOYS IN STRANGE WATERS
  _or Lost in a Floating Forest_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE PACIFIC
  _or The Young Derelict Hunters_

  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE CLOUDS
  _or A Trip for Fame and Fortune_

  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE ROCKIES
  _or A Mystery of the Air_

  THE MOTOR BOYS OVER THE OCEAN
  _or A Marvelous Rescue in Mid-Air_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE WING
  _or Seeking the Airship Treasure_

  THE MOTOR BOYS AFTER A FORTUNE
  _or The Hut on Snake Island_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE BORDER
  _or Sixty Nuggets of Gold_

  THE MOTOR BOYS UNDER THE SEA
  _or From Airship to Submarine_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER
  _or Racing to Save a Life_

  THE MOTOR BOYS AT BOXWOOD HALL
  _or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Freshmen_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON A RANCH
  _or Ned, Bob and Jerry Among the Cowboys_

  THE MOTOR BOYS IN THE ARMY
  _or Ned, Bob and Jerry as Volunteers_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE
  _or Ned, Bob and Jerry Fighting for Uncle Sam_

  THE MOTOR BOYS BOUND FOR HOME
  _or Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked Troopship_

  THE MOTOR BOYS ON THUNDER MOUNTAIN
  _or The Treasure Box of Blue Rock_


  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York




THE BOB DEXTER SERIES

BY WILLARD F. BAKER

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in Colors_

_=Price per Volume, $1.00, postpaid=_


[Illustration]

_This is a new line of stories for boys, by the author of the Boy
Ranchers series. The Bob Dexter books are of the character that may
be called detective stories, yet they are without the objectionable
features of the impossible characters and absurd situations that
mark so many of the books in that class. These stories deal with the
up-to-date adventures of a normal, healthy lad who has a great desire
to solve mysteries._


  1. BOB DEXTER AND THE CLUB-HOUSE MYSTERY
     _or The Missing Golden Eagle_

This story tells how the Boys’ Athletic Club was despoiled of its
trophies in a strange manner, and how, among other things stolen, was
the Golden Eagle mascot. How Bob Dexter turned himself into an amateur
detective and found not only the mascot, but who had taken it, makes
interesting and exciting reading.


  2. BOB DEXTER AND THE BEACON BEACH MYSTERY
     _or The Wreck of the Sea Hawk_

When Bob and his chum went to Beacon Beach for their summer vacation,
they were plunged, almost at once, into a strange series of events, not
the least of which was the sinking of the Sea Hawk. How some men tried
to get the treasure off the sunken vessel, and how Bob and his chum
foiled them, and learned the secret of the lighthouse, form a great
story.


  3. BOB DEXTER AND THE STORM MOUNTAIN MYSTERY
     _or The Secret of the Log Cabin_

Bob Dexter came upon a man mysteriously injured and befriended him.
This led the young detective into the swirling midst of a series of
strange events and into the companionship of strange persons, not
the least of whom was the man with the wooden leg. But Bob got the
best of this vindictive individual, and solved the mystery of the log
cabin, showing his friends how the secret entrance to the house was
accomplished.


_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_


  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, PUBLISHERS      New York




THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES

BY LESTER CHADWICK

_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid_

[Illustration]


  1. BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS
     _or The Rivals of Riverside_

Joe is an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and
particularly to pitch.


  2. BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE
     _or Pitching for the Blue Banner_

Joe’s great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the
school team.


  3. BASEBALL JOE AT YALE
     _or Pitching for the College Championship_

In his second year at Yale Joe becomes a varsity pitcher.


  4. BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE
     _or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher_

From Yale College to a baseball league of our Central States.


  5. BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE
     _or A Young Pitcher’s Hardest Struggles_

From the Central League Joe goes to the St. Louis Nationals.


  6. BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS
     _or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis_

Joe was traded to the Giants and became their mainstay.


  7. BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES
     _or Pitching for the Championship_

What Joe did to win the series will thrill the most jaded reader.


  8. BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD
     _or Pitching on a Grand Tour_

The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world.


  9. BASEBALL JOE: HOME RUN KING
     _or The Greatest Pitcher and Batter on Record_

Joe becomes the greatest batter in the game.


  10. BASEBALL JOE SAVING THE LEAGUE
      _or Breaking Up a Great Conspiracy_

Throwing the game meant a fortune but also dishonor.


  11. BASEBALL JOE CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
      _or Bitter Struggles on the Diamond_

Joe is elevated to the position of captain.


  12. BASEBALL JOE CHAMPION OF THE LEAGUE
      _or The Record that was Worth While_

A plot is hatched to put Joe’s pitching arm out of commission.


  13. BASEBALL JOE CLUB OWNER
      _or Putting the Home Town on the Map_

Joe developes muscle weakness and is ordered off the field for a year.


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   e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

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 --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.