Chapter XXI: The Contents of the Packet

It was Reddy who laughed now. How could he help it, when viewing the astonished face of Bob Archer, who was sitting there on the floor, and dumping out the miscellaneous assortment of eatables that had been contained in the sacks?

Frank knew that the solution to the mystery would lie with the man who had engineered the theft. He had wondered at the disconsolate appearance of both Reddy and Blaisdell while they were discussing matters; finally agreeing to each take a bag, and get out on separate trails.

Where was the treasure then, if they did not have it? Could it be that, fearing capture, they had hidden the gold? Even Bob could see that there was but a slight chance of this proving to be the truth.

Just then Bob happened to remember that, according to all accounts, there had been a third member of the bold outfit. All along he and Frank had rested under the delusion that Reddy and Blaisdell must have left this man behind, after taking his share of the plunder.

“Say, perhaps the shoe was on the other foot, and he got theirs!” exclaimed Bob, almost involuntarily.

At that Reddy chuckled again.

“I call that a good guess, now,” he remarked, nodding to Frank, and winking his eye in the direction of the Kentucky lad.

Frank understood.

“Meaning that the third man beat you out of your shares; is that it, Reddy?” he asked, as he stepped closer to the other.

“That’s just what he did!” growled the man known as Blaisdell, and who appeared to be even more dissatisfied with the way matters had turned out than the leader himself.

“There were three sacks in the beginning?” Frank went on, holding up that number of fingers, as if to emphasize his point.

“Three—that’s right. Mr. Riley knows it’s so, don’t you Mr. Riley?” the man with the fiery hair admitted.

“Just one apiece, eh? And somehow in the shuffle this third fellow managed to hoodwink you two, so that he got away with the whole business. Clever work to pull the wool over the eyes of such a smart fellow as you’re said to be, Reddy Cramer!” Frank went on, thinking he would hear the particulars sooner if only he could excite the temper of the other.

“Aw! he just ketched us nappin’, that’s how it happened,” grumbled Blaisdell, who seemed to feel so keenly the utter collapse of their scheme that he was in a frame of mind to tell everything he knew.

And Reddy, seeing this evidence of turning state’s evidence on the part of his comrade, was himself willing to confess.

“We thought he was true blue, but he fooled us, that’s how,” he remarked.

“But it’s hard to believe that one man could carry away the whole three bags of gold dust and nuggets,” remonstrated Frank. “Mr. Riley, here, says they’d weigh something like two hundred pounds. How about that, Reddy?”

“That’s all in the trick,” replied the other. “You see, it was this way. When we got off, each of us had a bag along. But we expected to have a warm time gettin’ away with the loot. And we had made up a plan to deceive Riley and his crowd.”

“Yes,” broke in Blaisdell, bitterly, “an’ don’t forget to say right there as how ’twas our smart pal that suggested that delightful scheme, which you an’ me tumbled right into, never dreamin’ that he had all the pipes laid to dock us, an’ leave us to hold the bag, which didn’t have the gold in, but the grub. Aw! this knocks me out, sure! Never kin look anybody in the face again after bein’ took in so easy; so dead easy!”

“We cached the three bags, all right,” Reddy went on, “meaning to come back for ’em after we’d put any pursuers on the wrong scent. Then we started off to leave a broad trail behind, beginnin’ from the strong room of the Cherry Blossom. Reckon as how ye must a seen that trail, son?”

“We did for a fact, and started out on it, just as you expected,” declared Frank; “when, by chance, we found a much newer trail crossing the old, and made by two men instead of three. You, never meant us to find that trail, because by following it we got you sighted.”

“No more we did,” admitted Reddy. “But, the fact is, around that time Blaisdell and me was so mad at being taken in like a pair of tenderfeet by that traitor, that we just didn’t care much what came along. We done our best to fix you with that broken cliff trail. Then, when ye still follered, we started the blaze on the level; and reckoned as how that had put you out of the running.”

“But it didn’t, as you understand now,” Frank went on, believing that he was getting nearer the explanation of the matter.

“Yes, some fellers have the nine lives of a cat; and looks like you boys might belong in that class,” sneered Blaisdell.

“Let’s go back a bit,” Frank observed. “Because we’re some interested in this business, and want to get that stuff away from your friend.”

“Friend!” scoffed Reddy. “If ever I’m free again, and I run across his tracks, he’ll sure wish he’d never been born. Nawthin’ ain’t too tough for a fellow as’d betray his pals like he done; and after the idea of the raise was all mine, too.”

“But tell ’em all they wanter know, Reddy,” broke in Blaisdell, eagerly. “It’s goin’ to do me a heap of good if they kin lay hands on that slick jay, and snatch the stuff away from him.”

“Well, ye see, we cached the stuff in the middle of a little opening,” the disappointed one went on. “I ’member now how particular he was to have it jest so; but at the time me an’ Blaisdell here never thought he’d give us the double cross like, and sneak back to get away with it all, which he did; the worse luck!”

“But you had horses, it seems,” remarked Frank; “how does it come that you didn’t start in pursuit at once, and overtake your false friend. With two hundred pounds added to the man’s weight, no horse could hold out long. Do you mean to say you couldn’t follow his trail?”

Reddy and his mate exchanged looks, and nodded ruefully.

“He didn’t leave no trail, son,” declared the former, with a shrug of his shoulders that stood for more than his words, perhaps.

“He must have, unless he flew away!” declared Frank.

“Which I take it is jest what our slick Jared Scott done, son!” remarked Reddy.

Bob uttered a cry. Up to that instant he had never dreamed to what the talk was leading.

But Frank made no outcry. In fact, he showed positive signs of having been entertaining a certain amount of suspicion regarding the truth. A number of little things in the immediate past, especially when they had caught some of the words passing between the two men just before the attack, may have given him a clue.

Nevertheless, he looked wonderfully pleased, as though this announcement concerning the identity of the third thief went far to brush aside some of the mystery.

“Jared Scott!” he repeated, after Reddy.

“Yes, that’s the sneak who fooled us,” replied the other, with bitterness in his voice.

“He had a balloon—did you know that?” demanded Frank.

“Naw he didn’t—then. Found it, arter he give us the slip, and hurried back to where we cached the stuff. He told us he had a hoss hid somewhere near by, an’ had rid in from Phoenix. That wasn’t so. I knowed that Jared Scott had been helpin’ one of these here fliers as gives exhibitions at fairs. Reckon as how he just run away with the old gas-bag, an’ had her hid in the hills awaitin’ his chance to get away with our treasure.”

“How did you find out that he had a balloon?” asked Frank.

“Why,” explained Reddy, with a sickly grin; “after he piled the three sacks of gold aboard he had to drop off all his bags of ballast, and we seen ’em there in the open place. There was other evidences too, that made us mad. But what could we do? No use tryin’ to chase a balloon, son. And by that time we reckoned that Mr. Riley’d be on the hunt. So we picks up our hosses, and runs. The rest ye knows.”

It was all very plain to Frank now; and to Bob as well. The latter had not been able to say a word while this interesting conversation was going on between his chum and the leader of the gold thieves. But now that the story had all been told, Bob began to “get back to earth” again.

“Well, if that don’t beat everything!” he exclaimed. “Just to think, Frank, we actually saved Jared Scott, when his balloon was running away from him, after something happened to make it unmanageable. But Frank, I looked in the broken basket, and there wasn’t a single bag of ballast, or anything else there!”

“No,” said Frank, with a broad smile beginning to cover his boyish face; “because Mr. Jared Scott had been compelled to heave the three bags of gold overboard, one at a time, perhaps, to try and lighten his falling air craft, which was threatening to dump him out on the ground from loss of gas!”

“Frank, do you really believe that?” cried Bob.

“I certainly do,” answered the other, who knew it could not be otherwise.

“He dropped the gold ballast to save his life; but, Frank, do you think a man like Jared Scott would ever want to lose track of such a prize?” Bob went on.

“Make your mind easy on that score,” broke in Reddy, who had been listening to this talk. “Jared always had an eye to the main chance; an’ even if his life was hanging by a thread, he’d never throw a bag of the real stuff overboard, but what he’d mark the spot where it fell!”

Bob Archer’s excitement grew stronger than ever. He caught hold of his chum by the arm, and Frank could see how the Kentucky boy was trembling.

“Frank, what about that packet he gave you?” he demanded.

“Oh! I’ve got it safe still; and here it is,” replied the other, as he ran one hand inside his jacket, and produced the envelope into which Jared Scott had slipped the paper on which he had written something, at the time he was leaving them to seek the services of a doctor down the river.

“Frank, we saved his life, he said!” Bob continued.

“Perhaps we did; and again he might have got out of that pickle without any help from us. It was a toss-up,” Frank replied, smiling at his chum’s eagerness.

“But just then he was feeling mighty grateful to us, Frank. I saw how he started, and looked at you, when he heard your name. And I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if what he wrote down on that paper turned out to be directions, telling us where to locate the three stolen bags of gold!”

“It may be you are right, Bob,” Frank said, thoughtfully, as he looked at the packet in his hand; “but you remember I gave him my solemn promise that I wouldn’t open this envelope until seven days had passed; and there’s some time yet before then.”

“Yes, _you_ promised him,” said Bob, “but _I_ didn’t say a word!”

With that he snatched the envelope from the hand of his chum, and tore the end off, as though he feared that Frank might try and stop him. But Frank evidently had no such intention just then. Perhaps he realized how conditions had arisen that changed the complexion of things very much. Jared Scott, an honest aeronaut, and Jared Scott, the accomplice of the gold thieves, were two different persons. And a promise made under such deception might not hold.

Bob was eagerly reading what the man had written. To do this he had to bend down to the lantern. Frank, and all the others in the room, watched him intently, eager to know the import of the message.

When Bob finished the short contents of Jared Scott’s mysterious note, he leaped up, and clutched Frank’s hands.

“It’s all right, Frank!” he exclaimed. “Just what I said, he wanted us to recover the treasure, because he feared he’d never get over his injuries. And he’s set it all down here in black and white, just where he dropped each bag when almost touching the earth. We can’t help but find ’em, Frank! Whoop! what luck! I feel like I could screech like a Navajo Indian in the war dance,” and Bob did actually start to hop around the shack, as though unable to control himself.