The main defect of the whole scheme had been detected by Tom. The original plan had been the work of a man whose brain was admittedly turned by sufferings and hardships. It possessed, moreover, one inherent flaw, and that was that while the Frying Pan Range was indicated in a general manner on the map, the precise spot in which the gold lay was not set forth. It might have been anywhere along the four hundred miles of solitary, unexplored country the range traversed.

It was apparent to Tom that the two men, driven half insane by their long hunt, had taken for granted when they came across the spot in which they were now encamped, that they had at last struck El Dorado.

Whether the objections that had at once flashed into his mind had ever occurred to them, or whether they had willfully ignored them, tempted beyond their judgment by the _ignis fatuus_ of the gold hunters' l.u.s.t, mattered little. Tom was certain that they had made a woeful mistake and were miles from the hiding place of the fabled gold, even if such a place had ever existed.

Granting that the gold mine described on the chart did exist, only chance could have given them success. But accompanied by their faithful black, whose brain alone had not given way under the continued strain, they had stuck to the quest till their judgment was warped and they were ready to accept almost any site that bore even a fancied resemblance to the blurred outlines of the dead miner's map.

In nothing, in fact, was their mental unsoundness more startlingly indicated as in their determination that this was the right place on which they had stumbled, despite the almost self-evident proofs that it was not.

They had been established in the cavern for some three months when Tom and Jack had so unfortunately stumbled upon them. When they encountered the boys and held that whispered consultation, the lives of our two young friends had literally hung in the balance. For the object of that talk was whether they should despatch the boys forthwith and thus render them incapable of spreading the secret (for they were convinced they were spies sent out by fancied enemies), or whether they should take them into their confidence and hold them prisoners till they reached the gold. This latter event they fancied was not far distant, and they finally decided to hasten its coming by holding the lads captives and making them do their share of the work.

In their warped minds this course was quite justifiable, as they intended, when they struck the vast wealth they imagined awaited them, to reimburse the lads a thousandfold for their labors. This was the main cause of their sparing the boys' lives. They needed extra help to enable them to reach their fancied gold quickly and therefore they decided not to slay them outright.

The boys knew that this success would, in all human probability, never be attained, while the men were equally certain that the achievement of their golden hopes was but a few days or weeks distant at most.

Their only course, they decided, after a necessarily hasty whispered consultation, was to pretend to fall in with whatever plan the crazy gold hunters might propose to them, and work or do whatever might be required with all the cheerfulness they could muster. In this way, and in this way alone, could they hope to lull the suspicions of the two men who held them in their power.

It was the only course that promised hope. To attempt to escape would be rash in the extreme, and might have fatal results.

They had about reached this conclusion when Stapleton strolled out.

"My partner and I have been talking," he said, "and we have decided to give you youngsters a chance to share in our fortunes. Of course you won't get an equal share, but since you have found us out, we mean to make you work and will reward you well for it. We'll make you wealthy for the rest of your lives."

"You mean that you want us to help you in your gold hunt?" asked Tom.

"That's it exactly. We can't be far from the gold now. A few more days will bring us to it. The more hands the lighter work, so you may consider yourselves elected members of the firm."

"It's very kind of you," said Tom gravely. Jack was beyond speech.

"That's all right, we like you. If you will be useful to us, we'll make you rich. Rufus might have had the same chance, but he doesn't appear to want to take it. He just keeps on cooking and keeping things to rights in the cave."

Tom was weighing every word carefully before he answered.

"I suppose Rufus is just lazy and doesn't like to work," he hazarded.

"Oh, no; it isn't that. He's energetic enough when he wants to be. But it's something quite different."

"Indeed?"

"Yes; sometimes we think he's a little cracked. What do you suppose he says?"

"I've no idea."

"Why, that we have made a mistake, and that this isn't Dead Man's Mine at all, and that there is no such place."

Tom nudged Jack and broke into a laugh as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Jack gave a ghastly echo of his companion's cleverly a.s.sumed mirth.

"What can have given him such an idea as that?" asked Tom.

"Well, we've shown him the chart once or twice, but he's so thick he can't make head or tail of it. Why, the poor, benighted idiot asked us once if this was the place where was that dead tree that shows on the chart."

"And what did you say?"

"Just what I told you. The tree had either blown down, rotted away or been struck by lightning."

The earnestness with which the unfortunate victim of an hallucination sought to explain away everything was pitiable.

"That stopped his objections, I suppose," said Tom.

"Oh, yes. He said nothing more. Seth said that if he heard any more rubbish from him, he'd shut him up effectually and we have heard no more from him on the subject. That's the reason we think that Rufus is a little off. He gets such queer ideas in his head."

"Oh, well, we are all liable to get our ideas mixed up a bit sometimes," was Tom's diplomatic reply.

But as Stapleton turned back into the case, his heart sank. The man was even crazier than he had thought. He actually thought that by detaining the boys he was doing them a good turn.

Through the gloom that obsessed his spirits, only one ray of light shone and that was this:

From what Stapleton had said the boy had deduced one clear fact. Rufus the negro was, apparently, the only one of the trio in the full possession of his senses. In an emergency they would have to trust to the black man to help them.

Would he do it?

It was a question upon which much depended at the crisis the boys'

affairs had reached.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

--AND A FRIEND IN NEED.

There were several reasons that inclined Tom to look for aid from this quarter. In the first place Rufus, although seemingly bound to his masters by bonds of affection, had no direct interest in their crazy schemes. In the second place, he had distinctly shown a friendly interest in the boys as had been evidenced when he winked his eye enjoining silence on them. And in the third place, persons of African descent are notoriously less liable, on account of their lower intelligence, to seizures of insanity than persons gifted with higher intellect.

But whether they could count upon the black to aid them was quite another matter. They did not for some time find an opportunity to put the matter to a test. Supper was eaten and the boys, despite their anxiety, made a hearty meal. During its progress they conversed with their hosts, who talked quite rationally on all subjects but their fabulous gold mine.

Anyone coming across the party and not knowing the facts of the case would have taken them to be a jolly band of explorers or miners rather than what they were, two lunatics and two boys who were in their power. When he got an opportunity to do so, Tom stole a look at Rufus'

face. It was a round, good-natured countenance, but for any expression that would give him a clew as to how Rufus was inclined toward them, the boy might as well have regarded a graven image of ebony.

After supper the two miners got out their pipes, but Seth had not puffed his long when he suddenly sprang to his feet, dashed the pipe to the ground and burst out in an irritated tone:

"Here we are losing time that ought to be spent in work. This may cause us serious delay in getting the gold out; it may cost us billions of dollars before we get through."

His companion's face lighted up with its odd, gleaming-eyed expression at the mention of the topic.

"That's right, Seth," he a.s.sented, "we ought to be at work. We may be keeping the youngsters here out of a fortune as well as ourselves."

Tom caught Rufus' eye at this juncture and thought that he detected a friendly gleam in it, but he gave no sign and soon averted his gaze for fear it might attract the men's attention. It cannot be said that Tom and Jack felt much enthusiasm, but they made a good a.s.sumption of it and seized upon picks and shovels as if they were going to make their fortunes the next minute.

The "mine," as has been said, was at the foot of the tall, conical peak. On close inspection, Tom and Jack were amazed at the amount of work the two fanatics had done on it. Tons of dirt and gravel had been excavated. A deep hole ran right into the ground under the sharp pointed peak.