CHAPTER IV

AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION

“Say, fellows, it would be worth while going to see how he takes it,” remarked Ned, with a chuckle.

“How who takes it?” inquired Jerry.

“And takes what?--explanation yourself,” put in Bob, as the three chums, and their two Western friends, paused at Jerry’s front gate. “Who are you talking about?”

“Noddy Nixon,” went on Ned, laughing as he gazed down the road where the bully and his crony could still be seen trundling his barrow of dirt. “I’d like to be at the jewelry store when Noddy hears that what he has isn’t worth a hill of beans,” added Ned. “For of course he’s going to have it assayed. Let’s go watch him.”

Ned seemed as if about to start after Noddy, but Jerry, putting out a quick hand, pulled him back.

“No, you don’t!” exclaimed the tall lad. “It might be some sport to see what a fuss Noddy’ll put up when he finds out he’s been fooled, but it would only be a passing joke, and, if he saw us standing around, laughing at him, he’d get mad and raise a row. Now we don’t want that. We haven’t had a run-in with him in some time, and there’s no use looking for trouble. Let’s pass it.”

“Besides,” went on Bob, “we want to hear about the sixty nuggets of gold. There’s more interest in listening to a yarn about real gold than in seeing Noddy get fooled over something that isn’t gold; eh, Jerry?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, well, if you’re both against me, of course I’ll have to give in,” sighed Ned; “but I sure would like to see the look on Noddy’s and Bill’s faces when they hear that they’ve been stung. They don’t realize it yet, for they were some distance off when the old gentleman explained about it being his watch that caused the lode of gold.”

“That’s right,” put in Mr. Brill. “Curious how I got fooled myself that same way. But at least I knew it was gold, and I was so surprised at finding it in that place that I never stopped to look at the character of it.”

“Me either,” chimed in Jim Nestor. “But if you boys want to hear the story I guess Harvey is ready to tell it, and then, if you’re agreeable, we’ll start after the sixty nuggets of gold.”

“Hurray!” yelled Bob. “That’s great! Off for the border and the golden West!”

“Hush!” exclaimed Jerry, placing his hand on his chum’s arm.

“What’s the matter?” asked the stout lad, looking around.

“Well, there’s no use informing the whole town about what we may do,” went on Jerry, in a low voice. “Besides----” He paused suddenly, and continued--“well, let’s go in and talk it over.”

“Say, there was some other reason why you stopped me,” spoke Bob, as he and the tall lad dropped back of the others. “What was it, Jerry?”

“Well, I didn’t want to mention it before the others, but, just as you spoke, I saw Sim Fletcher walking around the corner, and I’m almost sure he heard what we were talking about.”

“Sim Fletcher--that chap who’s been hanging around with Bill Berry lately?”

“That’s the one.”

“Well, I’m glad you stopped me, then, for I shouldn’t want Sim to know any of our business any more than I would Bill Berry, or Noddy Nixon. But I guess it’s all right so far; isn’t it? I didn’t let out much.”

“Oh, no. I don’t believe any harm was done,” said Jerry, but, at the same time he looked closely in the direction where Sim Fletcher had been last seen.

“Well, boys,” began Jim Nestor, when they were all once more seated in the parlor of Jerry’s home, “I guess we can spin the yarn now without being interrupted by that fellow who talks like a phonograph going at full speed. Are you all ready?”

“We sure are!” exclaimed Ned.

“Well, then, in the first place,” went on the Westerner, with a glance at Harvey Brill, who sat staring about the well-furnished room; “in the first place let me say that I left your mine in good hands. It’s producing well, and the ore is just as high grade as ever. But I simply couldn’t stay there after Harvey told me his story. So I engaged a friend of mine--Jake Masterford--to look after things while I was away--and I know Jake’ll do it as well as I could. So you needn’t worry about the mine.”

“Oh, we aren’t worrying,” said Jerry. “Only it rather surprised us to see you here East, when we thought you were in Arizona.”

“I don’t blame you a bit,” spoke Jim. “And I’ll tell you how it happened. One afternoon, following a fine clean-up, and when I had the gold safely put away and was wondering what I’d have for supper, there come a cloud of dust up the trail, and I thinks to myself here’s someone in a hurry. I unlimbered my shooting iron, having some notion it might be a raid, and I was just going to call to the boys to get ready when I seen it was only one man. Then I knew it was all right, but I was sure some surprised when I recognized my old side partner, Harvey Brill, with whom I used to prospect years ago. I seen Harvey was some excited, and I was, too, when he told me his yarn.

“And here’s where I relinquish the stage and spot light to him,” went on the mine foreman; “them being the proper terms, as I understand ’em. Now, Harvey, spin your yarn.”

“It won’t take long,” said the man who had brought the news of the sixty nuggets of gold. “To begin with, I’m a miner and prospector, and have been ever since I was able to handle a pick and shovel.

“I can’t say that I ever had much luck until lately, and then I sure did strike it rich. I’d gone to Helena, Montana, with a party of other prospectors, and we got so low that we had to be grub-staked. Even that didn’t pan out, and then I cut loose from the others and struck off to the northwest, in the mountains.

“I won’t tell you all the trouble I had, nor what I suffered before I made my strike, as it hasn’t much to do with the story. But one afternoon, when I was plumb discouraged, I happened to dig my pick in a certain place, and when I turned out a stone I saw the yellow gleam. I knew it was gold at once, and I went at the spot like a dog after a rabbit.

“Again, to shorten things up, I kept on digging until I turned out just sixty nuggets of gold--some of good size, and some small, but the lot was easily worth twenty thousand dollars--maybe more.”

“Twenty thousand dollars!” gasped Jerry.

“Whew!” echoed Bob and Ned.

“That’s what,” resumed the miner. “Sixty nuggets of almost pure gold I found.”

“And where are they now?” asked Ned.

“That’s the trouble, son,” said the miner. “They’re hid in a place that I don’t know as we’ll be able to get ’em out of or not.”

“Why?” Jerry wanted to know.

“Because I hid em down in a deep valley, right on the border line between Montana and Canada. It’s the hardest valley to get into and out of that I ever saw. There’s only one trail that I know of, and when I came back on it, after hiding my wealth, a landslide started and I don’t know as anyone will ever be able to get down into the valley again.”

Bob murmured something that sounded like “airship.”

“What’s that?” cried Mr. Brill. “An airship? Well I never----”

“I told you these boys had an airship,” interrupted Jim Nestor. “If that valley’s on top of the ground they can get to it. But go on, let that part go for now. Tell ’em the rest of the story, and why you hid the gold.”

“I’ll shorten it a bit,” resumed the prospector. “As soon as I had my nuggets, I found out that I was being watched and trailed by some of the grub-stakers I had cut loose from. They were after me, and as they were desperate men I realized that they would rob me if I started away with the nuggets. That’s why I hid my gold.”

“But why couldn’t you get a posse--have the sheriff and some of his deputies protect you?” asked Jerry, who thought the man’s explanation a bit queer.

“Well, son, I s’pose I could have done that,” said Mr. Brill, slowly; “but I tell you--I’m a peculiar man, and for some years back a host of poor relations have been depending on me to support ’em. I’m about tired of it, and now that I have struck it rich, if they heard about it, I’d never have any peace. They’d all want to come and live with me, and my sixty nuggets wouldn’t last long with that crowd. So that’s why I don’t want much of a fuss when I go to claim ’em. I want to dig ’em up nice and quiet like, and enjoy my wealth myself.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Jim.

“But couldn’t you have waited until these grub-stakers had gotten out of the way, and then dug up your gold, and got away with it?” asked Bob.

“Son, you don’t know those fellows!” exclaimed the miner. “They’ll hang around that locality for more’n a year waiting for me to come back and give ’em a clew. It won’t do. They’re too sharp. I had to come away without the nuggets, and now we’ve got to fool ’em, and get that gold when they don’t know it. Besides, it’s going to be some job to get into that valley I reckon, even with an airship, though I never saw one of the contraptions.”

“I guess we can manage that part of it,” said Jerry with a smile, as he thought of their fine craft of the clouds. “But what happened when you found you were in danger of being robbed?”

“What happened? Why, I made up my mind I needed help, and I at once set out to hike it to my friend Jim Nestor. I knew where he was, having had a letter from him. I knew he could advise me. So I left the sixty nuggets of gold hidden near the border, and went for him. Then he----”

“I’ll tell the rest,” interrupted Jim, with a grin. “As soon as I heard Harvey’s story,” the foreman resumed; “I thought of you motor boys at once. ‘They’re the chaps for us,’ I said. ‘Let’s go East,’ and East we came and here we are. Now do you boys want to have a try for it?”

“Do we?” cried the three in a chorus, while Jerry added: “We sure do!”

“That’s what!” cried Ned and Bob.

“But do you think you can find this valley again?” asked Jerry.

“I’m sure I can,” said Mr. Brill. “It isn’t easy to locate, but there’s one curious thing about it that I never saw anywhere else, and that is there are a curious kind of luminous snakes in it--snakes that shine at night. I never----”

“What’s that?” suddenly interrupted a voice at the parlor door. “Luminous snakes? Snakes that glow with phosphorus? Do you mean that? Oh, my dear man, let me ask you to be careful! Do not, I beg you, do not disappoint me! Luminous snakes! Oh, is the ambition of my life to be realized?” and there rushed into the room a little man, with a very bald head, and a pair of very large spectacles over his bright eyes. He strode up to Mr. Brill, and grasped him by the arm.

“Say that again!” the little man implored. “Tell me about the luminous snakes!”

“Wha--what--who are you?” asked the miner, shrinking back as though he feared a lunatic had attacked him.

“Professor Snodgrass!” exclaimed Jerry. “We might know he’d be on hand when a new kind of bug or reptile was mentioned!”