“Then, you’ve earned your keep--honestly?” Syd looked him squarely in the face. “Yes,” he said. Ben gave a sigh of relief. “It might have made a fuss,” he remarked. “Why,--did they try to find me?” “No; because your mother said she felt sure you had gone to San Jose.” “To San Jose?” Syd repeated in surprise. After a pause he added, “Mothers are queer--sometimes.” Ben did not reply, for he knew that Syd thought that his mother suspected the truth. “I meant to venture out to-night, to try to find out how you were and give you your gold,” Syd continued. “Here it is.” He held out the vial. “I hope I’ll never pass such a week of torture again!” “It has been a mean experience for us both,” Ben replied as he took the vial, “but maybe it’s done us both good. I’ll keep a nugget or a lump out of this,” he held up the vial containing the amalgam, “for the scarf-pin I promised you once.” “No, thank you, Ben; I’d rather not take it,” Syd replied. “Just as you say,” Ben put out his hand, for they had reached the foot of the hill. Syd took the proffered hand with such a hearty grasp that Ben felt that the experience had made them better friends than they had ever been. “That’s over, I’m thankful to say,” said Ben to himself, as he rapidly walked down the street. “And now for Mr. Hale.” CHAPTER XIV A CRIME DISCOVERED Mr. Hale was in his office, when Ben reached there; but the latter concluded that he would hear the result of the lawyer’s investigation first, reserving his bit of information until afterwards. “Well, my boy,” said Mr. Hale, whirling around in his chair, “I’m sorry not to have better news for you.” A kind light shone in his eyes. “We’ve got a hard old customer to deal with, I’m afraid. I’ve had the records searched and the entries of the lease were found to have been duly and properly made.” He tilted back in his revolving chair and put the tips of his fingers together. “I don’t see what we’re going to do about it. We’ve run up against a stone wall, without, apparently, a cranny in it. I say _apparently_, because one never knows what developments may turn up. It’s a case of manifest injustice, but such cases are of daily occurrence.” “Something has turned up,” Ben said, when Mr. Hale had finished. “Ah, so you’ve got some news. Let’s have it.” Ben related his conversation with the Chinese. Mr. Hale was astonished. “I can scarcely believe that that old miser would meddle with the records,” he exclaimed. “It looks very like it. Yes--if what Ng Quong says is true, Fish is a grasping old shark; but--what object could he have?” he mused. “I’ll tell you!” exclaimed Ben. “The lease is just as he says it is. But there must have been some mistake in placing the dates on the record, and that mistake was in our favor.” “It may be so. And the old fellow was so angered in being baffled after he’d made sure that the law was on his side,--he was so angered that he went to the length of changing the figures.”