e apt to be in
packages. You were right; I feel sure you were right!"

"But where are those bills now? Where is the bundle?" asked Link.

Without a word Chip, unaided, led the group to the nearby recess where
he had hurriedly stowed them. Pointing, he continued:

"That there is what I drug out of yonder hole, sir. I guess it's the
money, or Murky wouldn't 'a' been so anxious about gittin' it."

It was the missing money, of course. Practically intact, too, although
it was wet and in places mud-soaked. The bags of coin were there. One had
a small rip in the seam, doubtless where the coin had escaped that Paul
found near the dilapidated suit-case.

Here Paul's enthusiasm at last broke loose.

"Oh, you Chip!" he cried. "You're the goods, ain't you? That then was the
reason you didn't stop and help us fight Murky!"

"Yah--he had good reesons--heh!" This from Nels, now rejoicing like the
rest. "I bane like you, Cheep; zat I does!"

After that nothing apparently was too good for young Slider. Even Mr.
Beckley, dropping his previous air of good-humored toleration, declared
that Chip deserved real commendation.

"You have showed pluck and perseverance, for you were about to start
after that skunk Murky alone when our young friend Paul Jones joined you.
And Nels, our good old Nels, crippled though he was, came swiftly on
the trail of you both, arriving just when help was needed."

"Yes, Paul," remarked Phil, "our crowd came just in time too; but if it
had not been for you three, I guess we would not have both prisoner and
money in our hands right now."

"That reminds me," interrupted Link, starting off on a run. "Who stayed
behind to watch that devil Murky?"

As with one accord the others, except Mr. Beckley and Chip Slider, started
after Fraley, leaving those two to bring along the money. A moment later
they broke into the passage where Murky had been left, and found that
the wily rascal had already loosed his hands by rubbing the cords that
bound his wrists against a sharp edge of the rocks, and was at work upon
the bindings that held his feet. These were only partially freed. Seeing
his captors approach, he jumped up, made a reckless bolt for freedom, but
fell sprawling on the earth. In a trice the others were upon him and
after a brief struggle had him tied hard and fast again.

"You'll not get away again, old chap," was Billy's comment as he tied the
last knot. "There's a thing called law and justice you've got