“What’s going on, Joe?” Sandy demanded. He was rubbing his wrists, trying to get the circulation going again while Joe was busy with the knots that held Mike.
“There’s no time for a long explanation now,” Joe said as he slashed through the last of the ropes. “We’ve got to get out of here and find the others.”
“Those friends of yours seem to want something pretty bad,” Mike said as he rolled over and got back on his feet. “What I don’t get is why they think we can help them.”
“You were taken as hostages,” Joe explained. “They were going to use you to force me into something.”
“Into what?” Sandy wanted to know.
Joe stepped over and put his hand on Sandy’s shoulder. “Look,” he said. “I know I’ve acted badly the last couple of days. I should have told you right from the beginning. But, as I say, it’s a long story and we just don’t have time now. Will you trust me for a little while longer?”
Sandy nodded. “Sure. What’s the next move?”
“To find Hank and Mr. Cook.”
“Do you know where they are?”
Joe shook his head. “No idea.”
Sandy thought for a moment. “They probably went back to the house after we disappeared.”
“That sounds right,” Joe said. He looked up at the sky doubtfully. “But we’ll never make it by dark.”
“Then we’ll travel as far as we can and hide out till dawn.”
Mike snapped his fingers. “I know just the place,” he said. “That cave of ours. The one we fell into.”
“Right!” Sandy nodded.
“What cave?” Joe looked puzzled.
“That’s a long story too,” Sandy replied with a grin. “We’ll tell you on the way.”
They reached the cave with about an hour of daylight to spare. Mike was the first one to pull himself over the lip and into the opening. Then he reached down and helped Joe in.
“Welcome to our humble establishment,” he said, bending over in a deep bow. “You’ll find this the perfect place for an overnight stop. The rooms are spacious and well ventilated. Our rates are reasonable and I’m sure you’ll find the service....” He checked himself when he saw the look on Joe’s face. “What’s the matter?” he said.
“You say this cave was hidden?” Joe asked. His voice sounded oddly hollow. It was clear he was doing his best to hold down a mounting excitement.
“It was, before we knocked away the mountain,” Sandy said.
“How deep is it?”
“We didn’t feel much like exploring the last time we were here.”
“Have you got a flashlight?”
“In my bedroll.”
“Let me have it, please.”
Sandy reached into his blanket and handed over his flashlight. Joe practically snatched it out of his hand and plunged off into the interior of the cave.
“Hey, wait for us!” Mike called.
The cave slanted back at a sharp angle and opened gradually into a large shallow cavern. Sandy stared at the blank wall opposite with a frown of disappointment. “Not very big, is it?” he commented.
But Joe didn’t hear him. He was down on his knees beside a pile of stones near the right-hand wall. “Help me with these,” he called urgently.
Mike and Sandy exchanged puzzled glances and went over to the pile of rocks. Joe was pulling it apart, working with a feverish concentration. Sandy could hear him panting with excitement.
Suddenly there was a hoarse cry as Joe tore away a large flat stone. “Look!” he shouted. The boys leaned over his shoulder and, in the light of the pocket flash, saw what appeared to be a goodsized wooden box. The wood was very old and part of the top had rotted off.
Joe swept the remaining stones out of the way and curled his fingers under the lid. Bracing himself against the floor of the cave, he heaved up with all his strength. There was a sharp tearing noise and the top cracked open.
“There!” said Joe, playing the flashlight down into the box. “That’s what all this has been about.”
Sandy gasped. The chest was full of neatly stacked bars of silver—much of it tarnished with age, but still recognizable.
For a moment nobody was able to speak. Sandy was the first to find his voice.
“Who does it belong to?” he whispered.
“To us,” Joe said firmly. “To all of us.”
“Us?” Sandy cried. “Why?”
“Because you helped me find it. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Sandy started to say something but a familiar sound caught him up short. “Listen!” he said urgently. The others stood still and held their breath. “Do you hear it?” Sandy cried in excitement. “It’s the dogs. I can hear Drum!”
“They must be near the cave!” Mike shouted. The three of them wheeled and sprinted for the entrance, the treasure momentarily forgotten. “They’re getting closer!” Sandy yelled. In a final burst of speed, they scrambled up to the lip of the cave and broke out into the fading sunlight. Down at the bottom of the slope Sandy could see the first of the dogs coming around a turn in the trail. Drum was in the lead.
“Up here!” Sandy shouted, moving down the slope. “We’re up by the cave!” Suddenly he felt himself grabbed from behind and slammed to the ground.
A rifle roared and Sandy heard the angry whine of a bullet as it passed over his head.
“Back inside!” Joe shouted.
Sandy looked up to see three figures coming toward them. “The Crows!” he gasped.
“Right!” Joe muttered as he struggled to his feet. But the first of the Crows was already on top of them. With a last desperate lunge, the Indian covered the remaining distance by throwing himself on Joe. Sandy saw him slash down with his rifle butt and saw Joe duck the blow. Then the two men were rolling on the ground, fighting grimly for possession of the gun.
Sandy barely had time to lean down and grab an apple-sized rock before the other two Indians dove at him. Sandy heaved the rock at one of them, saw it strike him full in the chest, and then whirled to meet the charge of the second. Just as they were about to close, a snarling black-and-tan flash brushed Sandy to one side and fastened on the Indian’s throat. The Crow gave a frightened scream and battled to keep away from the slashing jaws. It was Drum, Hank’s lead dog, who had thrown himself at the Indian. The others in the pack were right behind him.
With a yell of terror, the Indian disappeared under a writhing wave of growling dogs.
“Down, Drum!” came an authoritative voice. Hank Dawson was striding purposefully toward the mass of dogs. He waded into them without fear and grabbed Drum firmly by the scruff of the neck. “Back!” he ordered. Drum shook himself and moved off a few paces, sitting watchfully on his hindquarters, ready to leap at his master’s command. The other dogs of the pack followed his example. The Indian was lying on the ground, his torn hands covering his head.
Sandy glanced around to see how Joe was doing. He had subdued his attacker and was standing to one side, panting heavily, a rifle in his hand. The third Crow was sitting where Sandy’s rock had flattened him, a look of dazed surprise on his face.
“All right now,” Hank Dawson said sternly. “What’s this all about?”
“Ever hear of Sun Mountain?” It was evening, after dinner. They were all sitting in front of the big stone fireplace, dead-tired, but determined to hear Joe’s story at last.
“Don’t think I have,” Hank rumbled. Nobody else answered.
“Sun Mountain,” Joe went on, “is a fancy name for one of the ugliest hunks of rock in the West.”
“Where is it?”
“In western Nevada, right near the California border.” Joe paused and looked over at Hank. “You don’t have a map by any chance, do you?”
“I think so.” Hank got up and plucked a dog-eared atlas down from a nearby shelf. “This do?”
“Sure.” Joe leafed through the pages until he came to a map of the northwest United States. “Here,” he said as the others crowded around, “is the place I’m talking about. Back in the days of the gold rush, Sun Mountain was important for only one reason. Wagon trains coming west used it as a guide. Right behind the mountain, you see, was a pass that took them over the Sierras into California.”
“It was the last jumping-off point before the gold fields,” Sandy remarked.
“Right,” Joe said. “But aside from that, nobody was interested in it. It was a lonely, miserable place. Sweltering hot in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. It didn’t have much in the way of trees or any kind of growth because all the water around there was next door to being poisonous.”
“How come?” Mike demanded.
“A mineral deposit inside the mountain seeped arsenic into the water. Anyway,” Joe continued, “wagon-train parties would rest up there before trying the pass. Sometimes they’d have to wait for days before they could move ahead.”
“What kept them back?” Sandy asked.
“Snow up in the high peaks. The pass would be blocked.” Joe closed the atlas and went back to his chair. “Some of the parties used to do a little mining up around Sun Mountain while they waited—nothing much, you understand—just enough to make the time go by till they got to the big bonanzas in California.” Joe laughed and fished for a cigarette. “If they’d only known,” he said. “The biggest bonanza of all was right under their noses.”
“Was there gold on Sun Mountain?” Sandy asked.
Joe shook his head. “No, not gold. Silver. That whole mountain was practically made of silver. You’ve heard of Virginia City?”
“Sure!” Sandy cried. “The Comstock Lode!”
“It was right on top of Sun Mountain. It was discovered in 1859. A vein of pure silver nearly sixty feet wide. Before it was worked out, it was worth nearly three quarters of a billion dollars.”
Mike whistled softly. “Did you saybillion?”
“I did.”
“And they passed it right by?”
“Back in the 1850s they weren’t interested in silver. Everybody was thinking about gold.”
Mr. Cook leaned over and maneuvered another log onto the fire. “I’m beginning to see the connection,” he said. “The silver you found in the cave originally came from Sun Mountain.”
“That’s right,” Joe said. “Somewhere in the 1850s a party of Mormons....”
“I knew it!” Sandy interrupted. “The same party that was massacred!”
Joe smiled. “Yes,” he admitted. “You were right all the time. I didn’t know that anybody knew about that incident. That’s why I was so startled when you told the story the day we first met. It happened just the way you described. They stopped over at Sun Mountain, found a rich vein of silver, and then moved on. Maybe they wanted to found a new community of their own. Anyway, they decided to head north. My people—the Blackfeet—massacred them here in the mountains.”
“How do you know that?” Hank asked.
“The story of the massacre was handed down by my tribe. As a matter of fact, it was my great-great-great-grandfather who led the raid.”
“Score one for Mike,” Mr. Cook said. “That’s exactly the way he said it happened.”
Joe turned, to Mike and laughed. “You people seem to have figured out everything.”
“But how did you know about the silver?” Sandy insisted.
“Before they were wiped out,” Joe explained, “the Mormons hid the silver in the cave that you two found earlier today. Each man in the party was given a map, just in case there were any survivors.”
“But there weren’t?”
Joe shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “Every last one of them was wiped out. My great-great-and-so-forth-grandfather found a copy of the map. He kept it as a souvenir of the victory. In the years that went by, it was lost. I happened to find it in among my father’s possessions about six months ago. I knew about the story of the massacre and I’d heard about the map. When I actually saw it, I got pretty excited.”
“I can imagine,” Mr. Cook said.
“I’m afraid I talked about it too much. Other people heard about it.”
“Including our friends, the Crows,” Hank said.
Joe nodded. “To make a long story short, they stole my copy of the map. Luckily, I had it memorized. I knew I had to get out here before they did, and when you offered me a job to come to Mormon Crossing, I thought everything was going to be all right.”
“But you hadn’t counted on their moving so fast,” Mr. Cook put in.
“Even then,” Joe said grimly, “I didn’t think they’d actually try to kill me.” He paused and stared into the fire. “I knew better after my ‘accident’ on Mr. Henderson’s dock in Salmon.”
“Did they do that?” Sandy asked.
“Yes,” Joe said. “They did. Apparently they were desperate enough to do anything to keep me away from Mormon Crossing.”
Mr. Cook leaned forward in his chair. “But, Joe,” he said, “why didn’t you tell us?”
Joe shook his head and shrugged. “I guess I should have,” he said. “But I didn’t want you to get involved. I thought that once we got away, the danger would be over.”
“But then you saw the smoke,” Mike said.
“And I knew they were on my trail. I didn’t know what to do,” Joe said. “I knew I was putting you in danger and I didn’t want that, so I decided to disappear and try to find the silver before they did.”
“What good would that have done?” Mr. Cook pointed out. “They would just have come after you later.”
“You’re right,” Joe admitted. “I guess I was too worried to think things through clearly. At any rate, I was up in the mountains when you came looking for me. I saw Sandy and Mike get captured by the Crows. I followed them up to the Crow campsite and waited for the Crows to leave. You know the rest. They were going to use the boys as hostages to force me into giving up the search.”
“One thing still puzzles me,” Mr. Cook said.
“What is it?”
“First of all, if you and the Crows both knew where the silver was located, why didn’t you pick it up right away?”
“Because we couldn’t,” Joe explained. “We all went looking for the cave, but it was too well hidden. If it hadn’t been for Sandy and Mike falling into it, we’d still be running around up there in the mountains.”
“Then why were the Crows up at the cave when we arrived with the dogs?”
“They knew approximately where the cave should be. The map told them that. They were hunting around, the same as I was. What were you doing there?”
“We were searching for you—or the boys. The dogs led us up to the cave just in time to see the action.”
“Lucky for us,” Sandy said.
“I’ll say!” Mike grinned. “By the way, what’s going to happen to our friends?”
“The Crows?”
“Yes.”
“All taken care of,” Hank assured him.
Mike looked surprised. “How?” he asked.
“I’ve got a short-wave radio up here,” Hank explained. “I’ve called the police and they’re sending a helicopter.”
“Now there’s an unexpected touch,” said Mr. Cook, laughing. “In the middle of all this wilderness a helicopter!”
“A very handy device, Arthur,” Hank said. “Most of the Western states today have an emergency helicopter service for backwoods communities and isolated hunting parties. It’s saved a lot of lives.”
“I imagine it has.”
“When will it arrive?”
“First thing in the morning. It’ll take the Crows to Boise. I’ve locked them in the barn for the night. They’ll have to stand charges for assault with intent to kill as well as a little matter of kidnaping.”
Mike frowned. “Does that mean we’ll have to go, too?”
“I’m afraid so. But don’t worry. It won’t be for long. We’ll be back here in three or four days at the most.”
“Joe too?” They all turned and looked at the Indian.
He grinned and nodded his head. “Sure, I’ll be back,” he said. “I signed on for a month, didn’t I?”
“I thought maybe now that you’re a millionaire, you wouldn’t want to keep on being a guide.”
Joe laughed. “I’m not that rich. Three or four thousand dollars at the most. Wouldn’t you say, Hank?”
Hank nodded. “I figure it’s worth about that.”
“Split five ways, that makes....”
“Hey, hold on a minute!” Sandy cried. “We’re not going to take any of it.”
“Yes, you are,” Joe insisted. “I thought we decided that.”
“No,” Mr. Cook said firmly. “It’s your money. You told us once about that place in Montana you wanted. Well, now you can buy it.”
Joe tried to protest, but he was overruled. “All right,” he said finally. “But there are two things you can’t stop me from doing.”
“What’s that?” Sandy asked.
“Neither of the boys has a game rifle of his own. They’ll have one when we get back here. The second thing is this. As soon as I get my place in Montana, you people have a standing invitation to come up any time for the best hunting and fishing in the Rockies.”
“We’ll take you up on that, Joe,” Mr. Cook said.
“You bet!” Sandy cried enthusiastically.
Mike held up one hand. “There’s just one thing I want to know.”
“What’s that?”
“In Montana—does everything start at dawn? Or do you think maybe I could get some sleep?”
“Mike,” Joe replied, “when you come to visit me, I’ll arrange it so the fish don’t start to bite before noon, and as far as I’m concerned, you can do your hunting from a hammock.”
“That,” said Mike, “is something I’m looking forward to.”
“Right now,” Sandy said as he rose wearily to his feet, “the only thing I’m looking forward to is a good night’s sleep. When did you say that helicopter was going to get here?”
Hank reached over and snuffed out the kerosene lamp on the mantel. “At dawn,” he said. “Right on the stroke of five-thirty.”
The general laughter drowned out Mike’s anguished groan of protest.