When the Hardy boys returned home that night after their afternoon’s fun and sat down to an ample hot dinner of steak and onions, with mashed potatoes, thick gravy “and all the trimmings,” as Jadbury Wilson expressed it, they found that the old miner had won a firm place in the household. He was able to be up and around again, although he hobbled painfully about, but his tales of the early days in the mining country of the West had won the interest of the women.

Mrs. Hardy was particularly interested when he talked of Montana, because of the fact that her husband was in that particular state at the time.

As for Aunt Gertrude, she was in a constant condition of solicitous excitement seeing that the old man was comfortable. And comfortable he was. It was a treat to see him relax in an easy chair after dinner, puffing contentedly at the pipe that he never allowed out of his sight.

In the evening Frank and Joe besought him to tell again the story of how he had been so basely cheated of his fortune in the West, and the women listened entranced to the strange tale.

“Do you mean to tell me that that wicked man actually ran away with all the gold you had worked for so hard?” exclaimed Aunt Gertrude indignantly.

“Looks that way, ma’am!”

“The scoundrel! I just wish I had him here for a minute. I’d tell him a few things!”

“I’d tell him a few things myself,” said Wilson mildly. “Still, it was a great many years ago and there’s no use thinkin’ about it now. The gold’s gone and I’m an old man.”

“It’s a shame!” said Mrs. Hardy.

“I guess I couldn’t have been much use as a prospector, or I’d have been able to hold on to what I got,” observed Wilson. “I’ve come to the conclusion that a man gets pretty much what he deserves in this world. If he ain’t smart enough to hold on to what he’s got, he deserves to lose it.”

“Didn’t you make anything out of your mining days at all?” put in Frank.

“Oh⁠—a few dollars here and a few dollars there. Enough to keep me in grub and with a place to sleep. Once in a while I’d make some extra money, but it never lasted long somehow. I got a claim out in Montana yet, so far as that goes.”

“Is it worth anything?”

Jadbury Wilson shrugged and stroked his beard.

“Maybe worth much⁠—maybe worth nothing,” he said.

“Can’t you find out?”

“I haven’t got enough money to work the property. It’s the only claim I’ve been able to pay my dues on, all these years. But I kept payin’ ’em, sort of hoping somethin’ would turn up some day. I’ve always thought it should be a good claim. It’s in a good location. But I’ve never had enough money ahead to do any more work on it.”

“Can’t you get anyone to finance you?” asked Joe.

“Not me,” sighed the old man. “All through Montana I got the reputation of bein’ too unlucky. They’re afraid to take a chance on me any more. They say, ‘Why, that’s Jad Wilson’s claim. Even if it is good, he’s always been so all-fired unlucky that we’ll be bound to lose our money!’ So they pass it up.”

“Never mind. Perhaps you’ll come into your own some day,” said Mrs. Hardy comfortingly.

“It’ll have to come mighty soon, then,” replied the old man, with a wry smile. “I’ve waited so long now that it seems I’ll be dead and gone before my luck starts to turn.”

However, under the influence of the warm fire and the cheerful company his natural optimism manifested itself and he was soon entertaining his newfound friends with stories both humorous and tragic of his adventures in the early days of the rough-and-ready mining camps of the West.

“I’d love to go out there!” said Joe wistfully.

“It ain’t all beer and skittles,” said Jadbury Wilson. “There’s quite a bit of adventure, but there’s a lot of rough livin’ and mighty skimpy eatin’ at times. I’ve often seen the day when all my flour and beans would be gone and the grocer wouldn’t trust me for another nickel’s worth. And, of course, the West has changed a lot nowadays. It’s got mighty civilized, they tell me.”

“Our father is out in Montana now,” Frank remarked.

“You don’t say! And whereabouts in Montana is he?”

“He’s at a mining camp. It’s a queer-sounding place called Lucky Bottom.”

Jad Wilson’s eyes widened.

“Lucky Bottom!” he exclaimed. “Can you beat that?”

“Why?”

“Lucky Bottom is right near the place where Bart Dawson run away with all our gold.”

“Isn’t that a strange coincidence!” ejaculated Mrs. Hardy.

“It shore is,” agreed Jad Wilson. “Mighty strange. To think that he should be in the very place where we lost our fortune. It’s a small world, ain’t it?”

“What kind of place is Lucky Bottom?” asked Frank.

“It ain’t very big. In the old days it was a real rough-and-ready minin’ camp, with dance-halls and saloons. Then, as the mines got worked out and the miners went on up into the copper fields, the town sort of dwindled away. It’s a sort of ghost camp nowadays, I guess. Nobody there but a couple of storekeepers and a few miners who keep pluggin’ away still hopin’ to find some gold that somebody else has missed.”

Jadbury Wilson rubbed his eyes and smothered a yawn.

“You’ll have to pardon me, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Hardy, “but I’ve always been used to goin’ to bed at dark and it ain’t often I sit up so late jawin’. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in.”

“ ‘Early to bed and early to rise⁠—,’ ” quoted Aunt Gertrude, with approval.

“ ‘Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise,’ ” finished Jadbury Wilson, with a wry smile. “Well, I been gettin’ up early and goin’ to bed early all my life and it’s never made me wealthy and I’m mighty sure I ain’t very wise. About all it’s done is to make me healthy. You couldn’t kill me if you belted me over the head with a church.”

He bade them good night and went upstairs to bed. Aunt Gertrude remarked that the Hardy boys would be well-advised to follow the old man’s example in the matter of early retirement, but they sat up for almost an hour before the fire, talking over some of the yarns the old miner had recounted.

“He sure had some great experiences,” said Frank, before they went to sleep that night.

“You bet he did. I wish we could get out there for a while.”

“It probably wouldn’t be the same now. He said the country has got pretty tame.”

“It can’t be so tame when they have to call dad out there in their gold-stealing cases. There must be some excitement left.”

“Oh, well, there’s not much chance of us getting out that far to find out. Go to sleep.”

But in the morning a surprise awaited them. When they came down to breakfast they found Mrs. Hardy already at the table, perusing a yellow sheet of paper.

“Telegram?” said Frank.

Mrs. Hardy nodded.

“It’s from your father.”

“Is he coming back?”

“Not yet. As a matter of fact, he wants you boys to go out to him at once.”

Frank and Joe looked at one another incredulously. The news seemed too good to be true. Mrs. Hardy handed over the telegram.

It read:

“Please let Frank and Joe come to me at once. Will send special word and instructions to Majestic Hotel, Chicago.

“What on earth can this call mean?” exclaimed Frank, in complete amazement.

“I can’t understand it at all,” admitted their mother. She was frankly worried.

“I don’t care whether I understand it or not,” said Joe. “It means he wants us to go out West, and that’s enough for me. When can we start?”

“The telegram says ‘at once,’ ” Mrs. Hardy remarked. “It seems very strange. And so sudden, too. I wonder what on earth he can want you for?”

“Perhaps he needs our help on that case he’s working on,” Frank suggested.

Aunt Gertrude, who had hitherto taken no part in the discussion, sniffed audibly.

The Hardy boys were so excited that they could hardly eat their breakfast. All through the meal they jubilantly discussed details of the proposed trip and when Mrs. Hardy, although admittedly worried at the prospect of letting them go so far by themselves, agreed that they might go immediately, as the telegram suggested, they flung themselves into a feverish orgy of packing.

Jadbury Wilson was highly interested and gave them a number of excellent suggestions as to what they should take with them on the trip.

“Lots of good, heavy underclothes and plenty of woolen socks,” he said. “You’ll find it plenty colder out there than it is here.”

The boys got their reservations on a train that would leave for Chicago late that afternoon. Their packing occupied more time than they had expected because they did not want to be burdened by too much luggage and had a difficult time eliminating the nonessentials. At last, however, they were ready. Aunt Gertrude, who had kept up a running fire of instructions and admonitions concerning their conduct on the journey, and who freely predicted disaster in the shape of train wrecks and robbers, gave them her final instructions. Mrs. Hardy, who merely kissed them goodbye and told them to write to her as soon as they reached Chicago, called a taxi to take them to the station, and Jadbury Wilson, warning them to be on the lookout for “them city slickers in Chicago” and advising them not to talk to strangers, told them not to worry inasmuch as he would look after their mother and Aunt Gertrude.

The taxi arrived. The luggage was tossed in. The boys scrambled into the back seat. Aunt Gertrude shrieked “Goodbye” a dozen times and sobbed audibly. Their mother waved a handkerchief. Jadbury Wilson brandished his cane. Then, with a roar, the taxi sped down the street and headed toward the station. Already the boys could hear the long-drawn whistle of the train.

“Off for Montana!” exclaimed Frank.

“I’m afraid of only one thing,” remarked his brother.

“What’s that?”

“I’m afraid I’ll wake up and find I’ve been dreaming.”