"So this Eclipse Mine is on Larkspur Creek?"

"Yes, at a point three hundred yards above a white cliff which the old miners used to call Rooney's Ghost, because a miner named Rooney once committed suicide there."

"And what about Baxter, father? If he has those papers, do you think he or his confederate will go up the Larkspur to locate the Eclipse Mine?"

"Undoubtedly--under another name--that is, if it proves as valuable as my old partner antic.i.p.ated."

"But if we can get there before him and locate for ourselves?"

"Ah, if I could do that, d.i.c.k, then I would not fear Baxter or anybody else. But if he gets in ahead of me--well, you know, 'possession is nine points of the law,' and he can at least make me a lot of trouble."

d.i.c.k sprang from the seat into which he had dropped.

"He shan't do it, father!" he exclaimed.

"But how are you going to help it, my son? I cannot go West with this sprained ankle."

"I'll go West myself and locate that claim in spite of what Arnold Baxter has done."

"You go West?"

"Yes."

"Without me? That would be, a--well--"

"Remember, father, I went to Africa to find you."

"I shall never forget it, d.i.c.k. But you had others with you--your Uncle Randolph, and Tom, and Sam, and Aleck."

"Well, I can take Tom and Sam with me again, if it comes to that."

"It is a wild country out there among the mining camps of the mountains."

"It's no wilder than in the heart of Africa."

Mr. Anderson Rover shook his head doubtfully. "And then if Baxter found out what you were trying to do he would--" He could not finish, but d.i.c.k understood.

"I shall be on my guard, father. I know what a scoundrel he is, and will give him no chance to get at me."

At that point the conversation was interrupted by the hired girl, who came to call d.i.c.k to a late supper. The lad was hungry, so he did not refuse. By the time he had finished, Mr. Rover had gone to bed, so his son also retired, without probing the Eclipse Mine affair any further. But it was a long time before d.i.c.k got to sleep, so full was his head of the suddenly proposed trip to the West.

CHAPTER XVII

BOUND FOR THE WEST

On the following morning Tom and Sam arrived, as anxious as d.i.c.k had been to learn the particulars of what had occurred. They listened to their father's story with interest, as he told of how he had heard a noise and gone below to grapple with the midnight intruder who was ransacking the library desk, and of how Randolph Rover had come to his a.s.sistance and been seriously wounded, and how all were now certain that the unwelcome visitor had been Arnold Baxter--that is, all but Randolph Baxter, who lay semi-unconscious, in a high fever, and who knew nothing.

The doctor came in at noon, and p.r.o.nounced Randolph Rover but little better.

"He must be kept very quiet," said the medical man. "Do not allow anybody to disturb him. If he should become in the least excited I would not answer for his life." So the boys kept away from his bed-chamber and walked about on tiptoes and spoke in whispers.

It was d.i.c.k who called together a council of war, out in the barn, late in the afternoon, after he had had another long talk with his father.

"Here's the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l," he said. "Arnold Baxter has those papers--or the best part of them--and he means to stake that claim if he can."

"But he won't dare to show himself," said Sam. "If he does, we can turn him over to the police."

"Of course he won't show himself, but he'll get somebody else to stake the claim and whack up," replied d.i.c.k.

"We won't let him do it," interposed Tom bluntly. "I'll go to Colorado myself and stop him."

"Good for you, Tom! You've struck the nail's head first clip,"

said his elder brother.

"Father was going out there this spring, anyway--and he was going to take us."

"True. Father would go to-day if he could, but he can't, on account of that hurt ankle," went on d.i.c.k.

"Then let us go for him," came from Sam. "We can do nothing here but worry Uncle Randolph, and I don't feel like going back to Putnam Hall while this excitement is on."

"I told father that I wanted to go, lout he is afraid the trip would be too dangerous."

"Pooh! we went to Africa," was Tom's comment. He was awfully proud of that trip to the Dark Continent.

"It isn't the trip so much as it is the fact that we may fall in with Arnold Baxter and his confederates."

"By the way, I wonder if Dan has joined his father?" mused Sam.

"Like as not. Certainly Dan knew what his parent was up to--sotherwise he wouldn't have written that letter Josiah Crabtree dropped."

"Then you can be sure the two Baxters have gone to Colorado," said Tom.

"And the three Rovers will go, too," said Sam.

"Will you?" asked d.i.c.k. "I wanted to say so, but--"

"Yes, we'll go, and that settles it," cried Tom. "And the sooner we get off the better. But we must get father to explain everything a little more closely before we leave."

It was easy to get Anderson Rover to explain, but not so easy to get him to consent to their going out to Colorado. At last he said that if they could get Jack Wumble to go with them they might go.

"Jack Wumble is all right, and if he says he will stick to you I know he will keep his word. He is a crack shot, and besides he knows Larkspur Creek from end to end, and it will save you a lot of hunting around to have him by to give information."

"And where can we find Jack Wumble?

"The last I heard of him he was in Chicago. He is rather a reckless man, and when he has money is apt to spend it in gambling.