rs, he was not aware that he was followed by
Bill Masterson, who, as we know, was the son of the proprietor of the
_Boston Moon_, on which paper young Masterson also worked as a
reporter.

Ever since Dick Donovan had written for his paper, the _Boston Evening
Eagle_, the wonderful story of the boys' adventures on the trail of
the giant sloth of Brazil, other Boston reporters had regarded him as
worth watching. In some way, young Masterson learned of Dick's
frequent visits to High Towers while the preparations for the Colorado
trip were going forward.

"It's my idea," he told his father, "that those Boy Inventors are
planning another big stunt and that Dick Donovan is to go along and
write the story. Do we want to get beaten again?"

"We do not," said his father, a heavily-set, dictatorial man,
perpetually at war with the _Evening Eagle_. "That last beat of
Donovan's on the Brazil story jumped the _Eagle's_ circulation sky
high."

"Well, why not let me trail along after them and find out what I can?"
said young Masterson. "No use letting the _Moon_ get soaked again, and
besides, I want to get even on those young fellows, anyhow, for the
mean trick they played in having me arrested, even if it didn't come
to anything, and the case was dropped.

"Jove!" he cried suddenly, as a new train of thought was suggested to
him. "I'll bet I've got it. This trip, or whatever it is, they are
planning has something to do with that miner, Zeb Cummings, the chap I
ran down."

"Well, it's worth keeping a weather eye on, anyway," decided his
father. "I guess you'll get the assignment."

"And I'll run it down, too," declared young Masterson boastfully. "I
owe that red-headed, chesty Donovan a grudge anyhow."

That evening young Masterson met by appointment the two youths who had
been with him in the automobile the day that Zeb was run down. They
were both sons of wealthy men, and had more money than was good for
them. Masterson found that both Sam Higgins and Eph Compton were
willing to do all they could to harm the boys who had been responsible
for their arrests, and so it came about that Jupe, on his way to the
village to post some letters, was enticed into talk one night, and
while he was chatting and accepting the good cigars three amiable
young men pressed upon him, the mail was abstracted from his pocket.

There were two letters, one from Dick to his city editor telling him
of the progress made and informing him of the day