t, and Peterson
standing apart from the crowd, with elate faces, talking earnestly.

'She's a rich dyke,' McKnight was saying, 'an' she'll go plumb down to
any depth. We must get the pegs in at once, an' apply fer a lease. She
just misses Silver Stream ground, an' the ole Red Hand is forfeit long
ago. Boys, it's a fortune fer us.'

'Remember Phil Doon's a shareholder, too; his father's got to be in it,'
said Dick.

'To be sure, lad, to be sure; all honest an' fair to the boy pioneers.'

Dick felt little enthusiasm about the Mount of Gold just then, for the
loss of the bag of stolen gold troubled him sorely. He feared that
Detective Downy regarded him as a liar and a cheat.

CHAPTER XX.

After coming up Downy examined the opening in the rock critically.

'Do you think a man might have made his way through that hole before you
broke the edges down?' he asked Harry.

'Well, yes, with some crowding I think he might've.'

'Yet the boy said he had to squeeze his way through. Did you notice if
the opening had been enlarged recently? Were there indications of recent
breakages?'

'Yes, the stone had been broken in places. I s'posed the boys did that.'

'Perhaps. Here, Dick.'

Dick was quite sure neither he nor any of his mates had increased the
opening. They kept it small because it was easier to hide; besides, he
said, it was more fun having to squeeze through.

'Which of your mates took that bag?' asked Downy sharply.

'None of 'em.'

'Why are you so positive?'

''Cause I know they wouldn't be game.'

'Afraid of the darkness or the mine?'

'No, afraid o' me.' Dick squared his shoulders manfully.

'Get out--why should they be afraid of you?'

'Wasn't I legal an' minin' manager an' chairman o' the directors? If one
did what I told him not to he'd get the sack an' a lickin', too.'

'Oh, he would, eh? Well, you'd better give me their names anyhow. And
now,' he continued after jotting down the names of the shareholders of
the Mount of Gold, 'show me the track you took when you dragged the hide
bag through the quarry.'

Dick went back over his tracks, and Downy followed slowly on hands and
knees, rescuing a hair or two from the edges of the rock or from a
bramble here and there.

'Fortunately that bag of yours shed its hair freely, old man,' he said.
'here's corroborative evidence anyhow. The bag went down all right--now
let's see what proof there is that it came up again.'

He returned to the hole in