noon
It 'll go mighty hard with th ' robbers , if we catch them , '' and Ham 's face hardened . `` Now jest show us where you had th ' gold hidden , '' and he and the others followed Mr. and Mrs. Dickson into the house . `` We had the gold hid right there , under that stone , '' and Dickson pointed to an upturned flat stone , about a foot square , that lay near a small hole , excavated in the bed of the fireplace , which the stone had evidently covered over and concealed . `` When we got in to-night there was not a suspicious sign anywhere ; and it was not until I lifted the stone off the hole to put the gold in that we 'd taken out since noon that we discovered that we had been robbed . I reckon there is no use of trying to find the robbers . A hundred men could hide themselves in these mountains in a couple of hours where ten thousand could not find them , '' and the look of despair settled back on his face . `` Nobody saw them come and nobody saw them go and nobody has the least idea who did the robbing .