"I don't know what to do."

"Let us listen to what they have to say. Maybe we'll strike some clew to
what they have been doing."

"Would that be fair--to play the eaves-dropper?"

"Certainly--if they are evildoers. Anybody who has done wrong ought to
be locked up for it," went on Ned boldly.

With caution the two boys made their way to the narrow window, and Ned
looked in as Joe had done. The backs of the two men were still towards
the opening, so the lads were not discovered.

"What is this new game?" they heard the man called Malone ask, after a
peal of thunder had rolled away among the mountains.

"It's the old game of a sick miner with some valuable stocks to sell,"
answered Gaff Caven.

"Have you got the stocks?"

"To be sure--one thousand shares of the Blue Bell Mine, of Montana, said
to be worth exactly fifty thousand dollars."

"Phew! You're flying high, Gaff!" laughed Pat Malone.

"And why not, so long as I sell the stocks?"