the search for the Grandall payroll money, and an earnest wish to help Chip Slider find the treasure, if possible, 13 and return it to the rightful owners,–the members of the club which had been practically broken up by its twenty thousand dollar loss, as many a larger organization might be.

13

Quite as usual Paul's voice was the last one heard when the discussion closed and the quiet of midnight settled over the forest. All had been silent for some time. Slider had expressed in his grateful, however awkward, way his appreciation of the offer his new friends made to help him. And Phil Way, answering for all the boys, said there was no obligation at all and no thanks necessary,–that nothing had been done, as yet, at least.

"Anyhow, it seems to me," said Paul, after a long silence, "It seems to me as if we were all going to have our hands full. There will be Murky and Grandall and Nels Anderson digging into this mystery just as hard as we can, and maybe harder. And they are all bad ones, all of 'em, unless maybe Anderson might not 14 be so really bad excepting for being hooked up with a bad outfit, and all that."

14

No comment being made by the others with regard to these remarks, Jones went on to say that if there was any advantage to be had by having right and justice on their side, fortune ought to favor Slider and his friends in the search to be carried forward. He reasoned it all out, too, to his own satisfaction, that in the end justice must prevail in all things or the whole world would ultimately go to smash. "And that's a fact, now, ain't it?" he asked.

There came no answer.

"Well, is it, or don't it, wasn't it!" inquired Paul, rather facetiously.

Still no answer. Jones raised himself up on his elbow. He listened. It was perfectly evident from the heavy breathing all about him that every one of the other lads was sound asleep and had been for some time.

"Why! The bing-dinged mummies!" he exclaimed, 15 "and me talking till I'm all but tongue-tied–and to no one!" he added indignantly.

15

Having heard how Slider slept in the open woods with not even a cover over him more than leaves, the Auto Boys would have been ashamed now to feel afraid in their snug shack, no matter what strange noises might come from the lake's 

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