“No one would notice a hole that small in the mountain,” Reston observed. “Come on, boys, but stay behind me.”
The detective advanced cautiously along the ridge between the valley and the sea. In a minute they saw a gleam of light in the window of a small cabin. They crept quietly up to the window and looked in. Old Ben and Waldo sat at a bare table, a pile of small stones between them!
17
Jupiter Guesses Right
His pistol in his hand, Sam Reston opened the door of the cabin.
“Claim jumpers!” cried Old Ben in his high, cracked voice. “Get ’em, Waldo!”
Sam Reston levelled his pistol. “Just sit where you are, Waldo.”
The tall old prospector was half out of his chair. He slowly sat down again.
“The maverick’s got the drop on us, Ben,” Waldo said.
“We gonna let him get away with claim robbing?” Old Ben demanded.
“No one fights fair no more, Ben,” Waldo complained.
The two old men glared furiously at Reston. Then Old Ben’s wild red eyes fixed on Bob and Jupiter.
“Those boys!” he cried. “I told you they was fixin’ to cause trouble, Waldo! We should have taken care of them!”
“I guess you were right,” Waldo agreed.
Old Ben waved his arms wildly. “You mavericks can’t get away with this, you hear? Always get claim jumpers, yessir. Hang ’em high, that’s what we do!”
“The mine’s ours,” Waldo insisted, touching the small pile of rough diamonds on the table.
“Is that why you had to sneak into the cave?” Reston demanded. “Is that why you dug at night and closed that cavern every time anyone came?”
Old Ben’s eyes grew cunning. “A rich strike, yessir. Got to keep it quiet. Word get out, we got a stampede on our hand. No sir, we keep it quiet.”
Bob said hotly, “You wanted it quiet because this land belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Dalton! The diamonds are theirs!”
“We been prospecting that cave almost twenty years,” Waldo protested. “We found the diamonds, we dug ’em out. They belong to us, you hear me, boy?”
All this time Jupiter had said nothing. He was looking intently around the cabin. He was intrigued to see that it contained a radio, a bookcase full of books, and stacks of newspapers. He picked up one of the newspapers and studied it.
Old Ben’s red-rimmed eyes grew even more shrewd.
“Tell you what, there’s enough for everyone, right?” he said in his high voice. “Sure, plenty to go around. Now, we’re not so greedy. Tell you what, we’ll split with you, eh? A quarter of these stones here, and you can dig with us in the mine, eh? Lots more stones in there. A bonanza!”
Suddenly Jupiter spoke up. “There are no more stones, Mr. Jackson, or only a few, and you are quite aware of that.”
Everyone turned to stare at Jupiter.
“This cabin is not entirely consistent with your pose as two eccentric old prospectors living in the past,” Jupiter went on.
“Gosh, Jupe, what do you mean?” Bob exclaimed.
“He means these old codgers are partial fakes,” Sam Reston said, “which I suspect is true. But how did you reach that conclusion, Jupiter?”
Jupiter pointed to the radio. “A portable radio scarcely fits in with the picture of two crazy old men with nothing on their minds but the past. And the books in this bookcase indicate an alertness and interest in the modern world they aren’t supposed to have. I would say they have found the people in the area a soft touch, contributing to their grubstake without asking any questions. And I am also certain that they were aware that they had not found a diamond mine.”
“How do you figure that, Jupiter?” Reston asked.
Jupe indicated the bookcase. “Four of the books in that bookcase are about diamonds, and all four are quite new. In addition, this newspaper contains a full account of the San Francisco diamond robbery from the museum. It is dated a year ago, and the story is circled in pencil. It’s a San Francisco paper, so they must have obtained it specially.”
So!” Reston turned to the two old men. “What do you have to say to that?”
Old Ben and Waldo looked at each other. Finally Old Ben shrugged. When he spoke this time his voice did not sound at all eccentric.
“The boy’s right,” Old Ben said simply. “We knew it wasn’t a diamond mine. No diamonds around here.”
“We thought maybe it was a strike when we found the first couple, ”Waldo added, “only we really knew better, so Ben got those books. The diamonds turned out to be mostly African types. Then I went to the library and found a small piece in the local paper about that robbery. We got a copy of the San Francisco paper, and it described the stones, so we knew they were from the robbery.”
Old Ben took up the story. “The diamonds were stolen, so we figured we could keep them. No one except the crook was going to know. We started to dig and found a real bonanza!”
“Only the holes we opened up made the cave start to moan again,” Waldo went on. “At first we figured that was fine, it scared folks away from the cave. Then Mr. Dalton and the sheriff started looking around. So I went up on the mountain and any time anyone came near the cave I signalled Ben and he closed up the holes until they went away.”
Old Ben chuckled. “We sure had everyone fooled. I scared you boys off once myself, only I don’t figure how you got into the cave to-night without Waldo seeing you.”
Jupiter explained the ruse of Bob and the dummies, and the two old men listened with admiration. Old Ben chuckled when Jupe finished.
“By jinkers, I said you boys was smart, yessir. You had it figured, and you foxed us pretty good.”
Reston spoke sternly. “This is not a laughing matter, Mr. Jackson. Keeping stolen property is a serious crime.”
Ben grinned sheepishly. “I don’t know if we’d really have kept them. Only we’d never made a real strike, and it was kind of exciting to dig them up. For a while we felt like real prospectors again. I guess it wasn’t right, only we figured no one would be hurt except the thief. At least not until we decided what to do with the stones.”
“What about those accidents?” Bob asked hotly. “And the rock that almost hit us?”
“Most of them were real accidents,” Waldo explained. “They happen around here all the time. People got nervous from the moaning and that made them more careless. The one that almost hit you was my fault, though. I was watching you and my foot knocked over a stone and the boulder fell. I never meant to hurt anyone.”
Sam Reston looked at the two men severely. “I’ll decide what to do about you two later,” he said, gathering up the diamonds and putting them back into the leather bag. The two old men watched wistfully as their rich strike vanished.
“You’ve acted foolishly,” added Reston, “but you did recover the diamonds. Maybe you meant to return them eventually, who knows? Just now I have a thief to find.”
Jupiter spoke up again. “I’ve been thinking about Schmidt, Mr. Reston. I’m positive he knows Old Ben and Waldo have been digging in the cave, and he must know they have found his diamonds. I’m sure he will be back to get them, which leads me to think you set a trap for him.”
The muffled voice spoke from close behind them all.
“You are a smart boy. I did return!”
Everyone jumped, and turned towards the voice. There in the doorway stood the fake El Diablo! His masked face was as young and rigid as when he had captured Jupiter and Pete in the cave, and his left hand held the same pistol aimed at them all.
“Don’t move, boys,” Reston said quietly. “If this is Schmidt, he is a dangerous man.” The detective was eyeing his own pistol, which he had left on the table.
“Very wise advice,” the muffled voice rasped. “And it is indeed Schmidt.” The thief waved his pistol to indicate they were to move against the wall. “Don’t try for that pistol, Reston.”