letters I received from the attorney in charge
of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by
some round-about way."

"Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?" asked
Tommy. "Are we all working in the dark?"

"He never told me why he wanted the boys found. For all I know, they may
be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense property.
My instructions are to find them. That's all!"

"Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will.

"They didn't have any regular room," was the reply. "They slept in the
breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when he
wouldn't, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard
somewhere. But the strangest part of the whole business is the way they
disappeared from sight."

"You didn't tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy.

"I meant to," the caretaker answered. "The last seen of them here they
were at work on the breaker. It was somewhere near the middle of the
afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly. The two boys
were often caught whispering together, and more than once the cracker
boss had launched such trifles as half pound blocks of shale at them. I
happened to be on the outside just about that time."

"The boys didn't go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a
chuckle. "They haven't got wings, have they?"

"To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the
caretaker. "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and stuff
of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down upon them,
and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!"

"Had any strangers been seen talking with them?"

"Now you come to a point that I should have mentioned before!" replied
the caretaker. "Two days before they left a strange boy came to the mine
and went to work on the breaker. He was an unusually well-mannered,
well-dressed young fellow, and so the breaker boys called him a dude. He
resented this, of course, and there was a fight at the first quitting
time. These two boys, Jimmie and Dick, stood by the new lad, and gave
three or four of the tough little chaps who work on the breaker a good
beating up."

"Now we've got hold of something!" exclaimed Will. "Were these three
boys together much after that?"

"No," was the reply. "The new boy thanked Jimmie and Dick for helping
him through his scrape, and that was about all. They might have talked
together fo