“And, look here!” Sam broke in. “Why shouldn’t this man Redfern have a choice collection of ghosts of his own?”
“That’s an idea, too,” Mr. Havens remarked.
“Then we’ll examine the homes of the ghosts first,” grinned Jimmie. “We’ll walk up to the portal and say: ‘Mr. Ghost, if you’ll materialize Redfern, we’ll give you half of the reward offered for him by the trust company.’ That ought to bring him, don’t you think?”
“And here’s another idea,” Sam interrupted. “If Redfern has ghosts in the temple in which he is hiding—if he really is hiding in a Peruvian temple—his ghosts will be the most active ghosts on the job. In other words, we’ll hear more about his haunted temple than any other haunted temple in all Peru. His ghosts will be in a constant state of eruption!”
“And that’s another good idea,” suggested Mr. Havens.
“Oh, Sam is wise all right,” Jimmie went on. “I knew that the minute he told me about unearthing the provisions in the tent before he knew whether the savages were coming back!”
“Gentlemen,” began Sam, with one of his smooth smiles, “I was so hungry that I didn’t much care whether the savages came back or not. It appeared to me then that the last morsel of food that had passed my lips had exhausted itself at a period farther away than the birth of Adam!”
“You must have been good and hungry!” laughed Mellen.
“What did you wander off into that country for?” asked Jimmie. “You might have known better.”
“I couldn’t remain in the Canal Zone,” replied Sam, “because no one would give me a job. Everybody seemed to want to talk to me for my own good. Even the chief in charge of the Gatun dam contract told me——”
“Do you know the chief in charge of the Gatun dam contract?” asked Havens, casually. “You spoke of him a moment ago as if you had met him personally.”
“Well, you see,” Sam went on, hesitatingly, “you see I just happened to——”
The confusion of the young man was so great that no further questions were asked of him at that time, but all understood that he had inadvertently lifted a curtain which revealed previous acquaintance with men like the chief in charge of the Gatun dam. The boy certainly was a mystery, and they all decided to learn the truth about him before parting company.