"Alger Jr, Horatio - Joe the Hotel Boy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Alger Horatio Jr)

"What makes you think that?"

"They said something about having to get out of the city, and one
spoke about being nabbed. Evidently they went away to avoid
arrest."

At this announcement Ned Talmadge whistled softly to himself.

"Phew! What shall we do about it?" he asked, with a look of
concern on his usually passive face.

Joe shrugged his shoulders.

"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?"

"What did they cost you?"

"Well, they didn't cost me fifty thousand dollars," and Gaff
Caven closed one eye suggestively.

"You bet they didn't! More than likely they didn't cost you fifty
dollars."