A SLIGHT MISTAKE.
“Tell me what this is, Pink,” said Clancy, “and you can have it.”
The red-headed chap had pulled a short, thick bar from the bag. The
surface of the bar was rough, and plainly it was of some sort of metal.
Ballard took the bar and weighed it in his hands; then he held it in one
hand and rubbed the other hand over it.
“Feels like a chunk of lead,” said he. “Weighs nine or ten pounds, I
should think. Wait till I strike a match and get a better look at it.”
The bar did not improve any upon being examined in the flare of a match.
It had a brown, dingy look, and Ballard dropped it with an exclamation
of disgust.
“Anything else in the bag, Red?” he asked.
“Three more bars, just like that one,” was the reply.
“I’d like to know why those fellows were taking so much trouble with
that stuff. Looked to me as though they were running off with it.”
“That’s an easy guess. They’re a couple of thieves, Pink, and they’ve
been stealing.”
“Where have they been stealing?”
“At the mine; there’s no other place handy where there’s anything
valuable. Thunder!” The exclamation broke excitedly from Clancy, for at
last the right idea had dawned upon him. “Pink,” he cried, “this stuff
is bullion!”
“Bullion?”
“It’s a cinch. Those fellows were trying to get away with it, and we
happened around just in time to block proceedings. Say, old man, we’re
starring ourselves to-night!”
“I thought bullion was gold,” observed Ballard.
“That’s what it is.”
“Well, gold is yellow. Strikes me this bullion is off-color a good
deal.”
“Probably it’s base bullion--gold mixed with other kinds of metal.”
“I guess you’re right, Red,” said Ballard, after a brief period of
thought. “Those two fellows stole the bullion at the mine--and left
their horses here while they were doing it. We blundered on the horses,
and then you cut loose with a yell that scared them into thinking some
one from the Ophir Mine was ‘laying for them.’ They pulled out in such a
hurry they lost the bag, and didn’t dare come back after it. It’s a case
of blind luck. Now, let’s carry the bag to the mine and get the reward.”
Clancy dropped the one bar that had been brought out for purposes of
inspection back into the bag, and began binding the cord around the open
end.
“Wasn’t there something familiar about the voice of that robber, Pink?”
asked Clancy. “Seems to me I have heard it somewhere before.”
“Come to think of it,” said Ballard, “the voice did have a familiar
ring. Where the deuce have I heard it?”
Both lads racked their brains for a few moments. It was Clancy who
finally recalled the owner of the voice.
“It was that pasty-faced Shoup!” he declared. “Lenning’s particular
crony, Billy Shoup.”
“That’s right!” cried Ballard. “A job like this is about what we might
expect of Shoup. But who was the other fellow? It’s so dark in here I
couldn’t see much of either of them. The other fellow didn’t do any
talking, did he?”
“No; neither of them wasted much time in talk. I wonder,” and Clancy
drew a quick breath, “if that second fellow was Lenning?”
“Why, no!” exclaimed the startled Ballard. “Lenning is night watchman at
the cyanide works.”
“That doesn’t cut any ice. He might have got the job as watchman just to
make this robbery easier for him and Shoup.”
“Those two wouldn’t work together, Clan; that is, not after what
happened in the gulch.”
“You wouldn’t think so, if they were any other fellows than Shoup and
Lenning. But you never can tell what those chaps will do. They may have
patched up their differences, and got together for this piece of lawless
work.”
“Perhaps you’ve hit it off, Red, but I wouldn’t be sure about it. Right
now we’ve got to think of getting on to the mine. If Shoup and that
other fellow should make up their minds to come back here and get the
bag, you and I would be in a fine row of stumps.”
This was a point that hadn’t occurred to the lads until that moment. It
helped to spur them on toward the mine with the bag of bullion. Each
holding an end of the sack, they made their way out of the chaparral and
back to the trail; then, looking behind them in the direction taken by
the two riders to make sure they were not returning, they crossed the
rise and started down the slope beyond.
At this point, three or four lanterns appeared at a little distance,
bobbing around like so many fireflies. The lights, it soon became
manifest, were converging toward a certain place--and that place was the
ground on which Clancy and Ballard were standing.
“There are some of the miners, now,” said Clancy.
“They’re coming this way, too,” added Ballard. “Aiming for us, Red, if
I’m any prophet.”
“Listen!” exclaimed Clancy.
“Halt, there!” bellowed a voice, making itself heard above the stamps.
“Don’t try to run, or you’ll be sorry for it.”
“Just as though we could run with a load as heavy as this!” said Clancy,
in a disgusted tone. “What do those miners take us for?”
Four lanterns clustered close, drawing in upon the two chums from four
different directions.
“Try to shoot,” threatened a voice, “and we’ll beat you to it. You’re
prisoners.”
“We haven’t anything to shoot with,” called Ballard. “And what do you
mean by saying we’re prisoners?”
“You know well enough.”
Two of the men with lanterns jumped up on either side of the boys, and
each had his arm gripped by a muscular hand.
“Here’s the bag of loot, Sim!” exulted one of the men.
The man called Sim appeared to be the leader. He was a bushy-bearded
fellow in greasy overclothes, and he held up his lantern to get a good
look at the faces of the boys.
“What!” he roared. “Say, ain’t I seen you kids some’r’s before?”
“I guess you have, if you work at the Ophir Mine,” replied Clancy.
“We’re chums of Frank Merriwell’s.”
“Well, sufferin’ Ike!” gasped Sim. “It can’t be that you’ve been robbin’
the safe in the labr’tory.”
“You think we’re the thieves that ran away with this bullion?” gulped
Ballard, horrified.
“We was out lookin’ for the thieves,” apologized Sim, “an’ we hopped
onto you two with the bullion. What was we to think?”
“You’ve made a slight mistake, that’s all,” laughed Clancy.
“Where’d you git that bag of loot?”
Both Clancy and Ballard took a hand in explaining that part of it. The
explanation was accepted at once, and the jubilant miners had a good
laugh over the mistake they had made.
“You’ve done a mighty big thing, you two,” declared Sim. “Come on to the
labr’tory with the boodle. Hank and I will scoot on ahead an’ sort of
ease off the tension that’s prevailin’ in the vicinity of the cyanide
works. Joe, you and Lafe come along with Ballard and Clancy. Better tote
the bag for ’em, I reckon; they’ve purty nigh done enough work for one
night.”
Sim and Hank rushed away with their lanterns. Joe and Lafe relieved the
two boys of the bag, and the four made such good time toward the
laboratory building that they bid fair to reach it neck and neck with
Sim and Hank.
As a matter of fact, Clancy and Ballard were only a little way behind
the two who had gone on ahead; and when they stepped into the building,
the first person they saw was Merriwell. Frank was thunder-struck.
“Howdy, Chip,” grinned Clancy.
“Thought we’d find you here, old man,” added Ballard.
“Great Scott!” murmured Frank. “What are you doing here?”
“A whole lot more than we expected to do when we started out,” said
Clancy. “You see, Chip, we just about knew you had come to the mine for
a talk with Lenning. I had figured that out----”
“With some help from me,” struck in Ballard forcibly.
“Yes,” corrected Clancy, “with some help from Pink. Having settled that
in our minds, we started along the trail to meet you and escort you back
to the hotel. But, instead of meeting you, we encountered some one
else.”
At this juncture, Joe and Lafe tramped in with the bag and dropped it,
with a thud, on the brick floor.
“What’s that?” demanded Hawkins, pointing to the bag.
“That’s the bullion,” said Clancy, “four bars of it.”
“We gathered it in on our way to the mine,” added Ballard, “and came
mighty near being gathered in ourselves by a bunch of men with
lanterns.”
“Meanin’ us,” beamed Sim. “At first we took ’em for the robbers.”
Mr. Bradlaugh, dazed by the sudden trend of events, pushed forward.
“Do you mean to say, my lads,” he asked, “that you recovered the stolen
bullion on your way here from town?”
“Yes,” came from both Clancy and Ballard.
“How in the world did you do it?” queried the perplexed general manager.
“It was a case of blind luck,” said Ballard, and, for the second time,
he and Clancy explained how they had found the horses in the chaparral,
and had later been fortunate enough to recover the bag of bullion.
“Well, of all the darn-fool plays I ever heard of,” grunted Hawkins,
“that takes the banner. Why, you boys didn’t even know there’d been a
robbery here.”
“Didn’t even know we’d got hold of bullion, at first,” laughed Ballard,
“and after looking at one of the bars at that.”
“It’s one of those things,” said the overjoyed Mr. Bradlaugh, “which
could happen about once in a thousand times.”
“Once in a million times,” declared Burke. “Merriwell, you’re lucky to
have two such fellows for pards.”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to impress upon him for a long time,”
remarked Ballard plaintively. “Now I guess he knows what a fine pair of
star actors we are.”
“You’re all to the mustard, both of you!” cried the delighted Merriwell.
“All that’s left for me to do, I suppose,” growled Hawkins, “is to find
Lenning and Shoup. This business is being wound up in short order, Mr.
Bradlaugh.”