pointing ahead.

The boys looked and saw, a little in advance, a tumble-down hut, from the window of which a light gleamed.

“That’s queer,” observed Jerry.

“What is, to see a light in a hut?” asked Bob.

“No; but in that particular one,” replied Jerry. “I came past there day before yesterday and I noticed that the place is almost ready to fall apart. No one can be living in it, and any one who is there at night with a light is there for no good purpose.”

“Let’s take a look,” suggested Bob.

Jerry shut off the power, took out the spark plug and the boys advanced cautiously, leaving the machine on one side of the road.

“Maybe there are tramps in there who won’t like being spied on,” said Ned.

“Don’t make any noise,” was Jerry’s answer. “Be ready to run when I give the word.”

On tiptoes the boys drew near the hut. Suddenly Bob grabbed Jerry by the arm.

“What is it?” asked Jerry.

“Smell that?”

“Acetylene gas! Some one has been here with a gas lamp, and within a few minutes,” agreed Jerry, sniffing the peculiar odor.

“Isn’t that a motor cycle leaning against the building?” asked Ned.

“Sure enough!” said Jerry. “Go slow, boys.”

Walking like cats, they reached the window from which the light streamed. As they glanced inside they saw a sight that startled them.

Lying on a pile of rags in one corner of the bare room, in the glare of a candle, was an old man, with matted and unkempt hair and beard. His face showed pain and suffering. His clothes were old and ragged. But what attracted the attention of the boys was the fact that he wore about his waist a wide leather belt, with several compartments or pockets in it. The pockets were open and in them, as well as scattered on the floor in front of the man, were little piles of yellow, gleaming gold.

“He’s a miner!” whispered Bob, hoarsely.

As the boys watched they heard the old man moan:

“Don’t rob me! Don’t take what little I have left! If I wasn’t sick and suffering no one would dare play this trick on Jim Nestor!”

The next instant the boys heard a sound from the farther corner of the room. Out of the semi-darkness came a figure. It stooped over the old miner. There was the sound of a blow, a deep groan—and then came darkness as the candle was extinguished.

Some one ran rapidly from the hut.

“Help! help!” called the miner, feebly. “Help! He’s robbed me!”

CHAPTER IV.
A CHASE AFTER A RASCAL.

“After him!” cried Jerry. “Catch the miserable thief!”

“You and Bob chase him, whoever he is!” called Ned. “I’ll stay with the old miner here in the hut. He may be badly hurt.”

“Hurry back to the auto!” shouted Jerry. “We can catch the thief in that.”

As he spoke he looked ahead. A dark figure crossed the patch of moonlight in the rear of the hut. Then came a sound of a motor-cycle being started, and soon the chug-chug of the machine on the road told that the thief was escaping that way.

Jerry and Bob ran to the auto. In a trice Jerry had the engine cranked up. Bob jumped in, followed by his companion, and they put off down the road after the fleeing motor-cyclist, whom the moonlight plainly revealed.

“He can’t get away from us!” exclaimed Jerry. “We will overhaul him in a jiffy!”

But Jerry reckoned without knowing who he was after. He did not dare put on full speed, while the cyclist rashly had his machine going as fast as the explosions could follow one after the other. Besides, the thief had a good start with his light apparatus.

But Jerry determined to make the capture. He threw in the second speed gear and in a little while had lessened the distance between the auto and the motor-cycle.

“I wonder who it is?” asked Bob.

“Maybe we can tell,” answered his chum. Jerry switched on the searchlight in the front of the auto. A dazzling pencil of illumination shot down the road.

In the white glare the figure of the motorist stood out sharply, and the red motor he rode could be plainly seen. At the sight both boys gave a start.

“Jack Pender!” exclaimed Bob.

“As sure as guns!” cried Jerry. “We must catch him!”

He was about to take chances and put on the third gear, when Pender, on his cycle, suddenly turned from the main road, and took a path leading through the fields.

“That ends it!” exclaimed Jerry. “No use trying to follow him. Our auto isn’t built for ’cross-country riding.”

He slowed up, turned around, and, with a last glance in the direction Noddy Nixon’s former toady and friend had taken, sent the car back toward the lonely hut.

Meanwhile, Ned, after his companions had started on the chase, had struck a match and lighted the candle in the cabin. He found the old miner, for such the boys correctly guessed him to be, lying unconscious in a corner. The belt, with the gold-dust was gone, though a few grains of the precious metal were scattered over the floor. Ned found a pail of water in the place. He bathed the old man’s head and poured some of the fluid down his throat.

“Where am I? What happened?” asked the old man, opening his eyes. Then he passed his hand over his head. His fingers were stained with blood.

“You’re all right,” spoke Ned. “I’ll take care of you. What’s your name and where did you come from?”

“Don’t let him rob me!” pleaded the old miner. “I have only a little gold, but I need it. I know where there is more, much more. I’ll tell you, only don’t hit me again. I’m sick, please don’t strike poor Jim Nestor!”

“No one is going to hurt you,” said Ned, in soothing tones, but the old man did not seem to comprehend. Ned felt of the miner’s head, and found he had a bad cut on the back. He washed it off with some water and bound his handkerchief around it. This seemed to ease the old man, and he sank into a doze.

“Well, of all the queer adventures, this is about the limit,” spoke Ned, to himself.

The boy glanced about the hut. There was nothing to throw any light on the strange happenings. The candle flickered in the draught from the open door, and cast weird shadows. The man breathed like a person in distress. Ned was about to bathe the wounded man’s head again, when the sound of the automobile returning was heard.

“What luck?” asked Ned, running to the door. “Did you get him?”

Whereupon Jerry told of the fruitless chase after Jack Pender. The three boys entered the hut, and Ned told his chums what he had done to relieve the miner.

“He’s got a bad wound on the head,” he went on. “I guess Pender must have hit him. Jack probably came this way, saw the old man in here sick, and unable to help himself, and watched his chance to rob him. There must have been considerable gold-dust in that belt.”

Jerry stooped down and gathered a little from the floor.

“There is some mystery here,” he said. “I think we had better get a doctor for the old miner. After he gets better he may talk. I’d like to get my hands on Pender for a little while.”

“So would I,” chorused Ned and Bob.

“The question is, shall we take the old man back in the auto with us, or run back to town and bring out a doctor?” went on Jerry.

“I think we’d better go get a doctor and fetch him here,” was Ned’s opinion. “It might injure the