XI
Fenton Hardy’s Story
Lucky Bottom was a particularly desolate place in the winter time. It was not especially prepossessing at any season, but when the cold winds blew down from the rocky mountainsides and when snow drifted deep in the narrow street Lucky Bottom seemed like a deserted village. It had once been a prosperous mining camp, but one by one the mines had been worked out until now there was but one left. A few prospectors made the village their headquarters still, hanging on in the vain hope of some day making a lucky strike that would restore the town to its former grandeur, but the general impression prevailed that Lucky Bottom’s days were numbered.
There were a few gaunt, hard-bitten individuals on the station platform when the Hardy boys got off the train. They were the only passengers that day and evidently it was unusual for anyone to alight at Lucky Bottom, because the loungers stared at them as if they were beings from another world.
“Can you tell me where Hank Shale’s cabin is?” asked Frank of one of the men leaning against the station.
The native shifted his chew of tobacco, spat into the snow, and reflected.
“Straight down Main Street,” he said. “Then you start climbin’ the hill. When you get to the top of the hill you’ll find Hank’s place. You can see it from here.”
He conducted them to the end of the platform and pointed to the top of a hill back of the collection of shacks comprising the town. The boys could see a small log cabin, almost hidden by trees and almost buried in the snow. The distance was not great, so Frank and Joe, after thanking the man who had directed them, started off toward the cabin.
They went through Lucky Bottom, which was nothing more than a collection of shacks and cabins ranged on either side of a wide street, and struck out up the hill until the street came to an end. There they followed a narrow path through the snow until at length they reached Hank Shale’s place.
Their approach had evidently been seen, because the door opened as they neared the cabin and an elderly man with heavy, drooping mustache stood awaiting them.
“You the Hardy lads?” he inquired, in a piping voice.
“Yes. This is Mr. Shale’s place, isn’t it?” returned Frank.
“Come in. Come in,” invited Hank Shale, standing aside to let them enter. “We’ve been expecting you this last day.”
The boys entered a small, two-roomed cabin, a typical bachelor’s residence, which, however, was kept scrupulously neat. They had barely time to look around before Hank Shale led the way to the adjoining room.
“Your father’s in here,” he said. “Come along.”
They followed the man into the bedroom, and there they saw Fenton Hardy lying on a small cot. He sat up in bed as they entered, and held out his hand.
“Hello, sons!” he greeted them, with his cheerful smile. “Glad to see you.”
When greetings had been exchanged, Hank Shale took the boys’ coats and hats and began setting the table for supper. Soon the cabin was redolent with the fragrant odor of coffee. While Hank was busy in the other room, the boys had a chance to talk with their father.
“But how did you get hurt, Dad?” asked Frank.
Fenton Hardy leaned back on his pillow with a sigh.
“I cracked two of my ribs,” he told them. “Tumbled down off a big rock back in the mountains, and now I’m laid up until the ribs mend again. I’m thankful it wasn’t a great deal worse.”
“We thought perhaps someone had shot you.”
“No, it wasn’t that bad. I was chasing a fellow at the time, and if it hadn’t been for falling off the rock I would have caught him. So my good friend Hank Shale insisted that I come to his cabin until my ribs set again. It isn’t very serious, but it will keep me indoors for a while. That’s why I sent for you.”
“You want us to take up the case where you left off?”
Their father nodded.
“I’ll be able to help you considerably, even if I am laid up,” he said. “But what delayed you? We expected you here yesterday.”
The Hardy boys glanced at one another.
“You must have enemies that knew we were coming, Dad,” Frank said. “They tried to sidetrack us in Chicago. We were delayed a whole day there.”
“How was that?”
The boys then told their father of their meeting with the man who called himself Hopkins, of being locked in the compartment on the wrong train, of their fight on the road and of their eventual return to Chicago. When they told him of their simple disguise on the trip westward he nodded approval. When they told him of the rough-looking man who had searched the train for them at the mining village he frowned.
“Just as I expected,” he remarked. “Someone must have got their hands on a copy of that telegram I sent you.”
“The operator wouldn’t give it out.”
“No. But they may have tapped the wires. They would know that if I sent a message it would be to bring someone out here to help me. And this gang I have been fighting are capable of anything.”
“Who are they?”
“It’s a long story, boys. But seeing that you’re going to be working on the case, I may as well give you all the information I have. This case concerns a quantity of gold that was stolen from three miners. One of these men, called Bart Dawson—”
“Bart Dawson!” exclaimed Frank and Joe simultaneously.
Their father looked at them in surprise.
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“Why, that’s the man Jadbury Wilson mentioned!” Frank exclaimed.
“And who, may I ask, is Jadbury Wilson?”
“We’ll tell you later, Dad. It may not be the same fellow, but he mentioned a miner named Bart Dawson. Go on with the story, and then we can tell you about Wilson.”
“Well, this chap Dawson called me out here on the case and told me that the gold was stolen from them by a gang of outlaws who have been terrorizing this district for years. The outlaws are known as Black Pepper’s Gang.”
“Black Pepper! And his real name is Jack Pepperill.”
“You seem to know as much about these fellows as I do myself,” said the detective, in surprise.
“We’ll tell you how we happened to hear about him. It’s the same man all right. Go ahead.”
“Black Pepper’s gang stole the gold from these miners. I discovered that before I’d been working on the case two days. We laid a trap for two members of the gang and managed to capture them. Then we threatened them with imprisonment if they didn’t tell where the gold had gone to. They declared that one member of the gang had deserted and had taken the gold with him. The gold was in four bags, and although the outlaws gave chase and finally caught this man, the bags had disappeared. Try as they might, they could not get the fellow to admit where he had hidden it. He denied the theft utterly, said he had seen nothing of the gold, and that night he escaped.
“The outlaws were of the opinion that the gold had been hidden somewhere in a deserted mine shaft. That was the story the two rascals told us, and it was while I was checking up on this story that I was attacked by Black Pepper himself. I managed to fight him off and disarmed him, but he got away so I chased him and it was while I was chasing him that I fell off the rock and cracked my ribs.”
“And that’s how the case stands now?”
“That’s how it stands now. I don’t know whether to believe the two outlaws we captured or not. They may have been telling the truth. The gold may have really been stolen by the chap who deserted them. They said he later escaped from them and that they thought he had probably gone back to where he had hidden the gold and made away with it.”
“In that case there wouldn’t be much chance of getting it again.”
“It’s that circumstance that makes me suspicious of the story. If the deserter had recovered the gold and cleared out, the outlaws would likely give up hunting for it and they would certainly give up bothering me. But they are still in the vicinity and I have an idea they know just where the gold is and are waiting for a chance to get their hands on it. I think this story about the chap deserting from the gang and making away with the loot is false. They just wanted to throw me off the trail and probably thought I’d give up the case and go back East, leaving them a clear field.”
“What is your theory about the gold?”
“I think they know where it is, all right. They have it hidden away safely but they don’t dare remove it. They’ll wait until the affair dies down and then they’ll probably separate and leave this district, meeting somewhere else to divide the loot.”
“Our problem is—”
“To find that gold.” Fenton Hardy looked steadily at his sons as he said this. “I have a lot of confidence in you,” he went on. “It just requires a lot of hard work and keeping your eyes open. Mainly, it will keep the gang on the jump. They’ll know we haven’t given up the case and they’ll be afraid to do anything. And now,” he said, “you might tell me how you happen to have heard the names of Bart Dawson and Black Pepper before.”
Frank and Joe then told their father of their meeting with Jadbury Wilson, the old miner who said he had once lived in Lucky Bottom. They deemed it best not to mention the fact that Jadbury Wilson suspected Bart Dawson of stealing from him. If Bart Dawson were back in Lucky Bottom they felt safer in reserving this bit of information. They merely told their father that Wilson had mentioned the names of Dawson and Black Pepper, among others, as having lived in Lucky Bottom at the time he had been a miner there.
“What kind of chap is Dawson?” asked Frank.
“One of the finest!” declared their father promptly. “He is a real square-shooter, as the miners would say. The loss of the gold has broken him all up. He told me he had had hard luck all his life and now that he had a fortune within his grasp it was heartbreaking to lose it again.”
Frank could not help thinking that life had evidently paid back Bart Dawson in his own coin. He had stolen a fortune from Jadbury Wilson after Wilson had endured hard luck for years. Now he was getting a taste of his own medicine. Still, it seemed strange that Fenton Hardy should be so convinced of Dawson’s honesty if he were the type of man who would rob his own partners.
“Come and get it!” piped Hank Shale, from the next room.
“That’s the supper call,” laughed Mr. Hardy. “You must be hungry after your journey. Better go and eat. Hank will bring me mine in here.”
Nothing loath, the two boys went into the combination living room and kitchen, where Hank Shale was already dishing out piping hot beans and stew from an enormous pot. What with huge slabs of bread, thickly buttered, and excellent coffee, the boys sat down to their supper with a will. They ate off tin plates and drank from tin cups, but they agreed that no meal could have tasted better. Even the food of the dining car on the train, exquisitely cooked and served though it had been, seemed somehow to lack the flavor of this meal in Hank Shale’s mountain cabin.
Hank, like most men who have lived a solitary existence, was a silent man. He said nothing throughout the meal, but as he watched the boys eat and as he responded to their request for second helpings, a slow smile crept over his wrinkled face.
“That’s the best meal I ever ate!” declared Frank emphatically, when he had cleared his plate for the second time.
“Me too,” agreed Joe.
“Glad ye like it,” said Hank Shale, deeply pleased.