“Yes.  If you will, I’d like you to tell me all you can about those two men.”

“I will,” answered Joe, and told of the strange meeting at the old lodge and of what had followed.  Maurice Vane drew a long breath and shook his head sadly.

“I was certainly a green one, to be taken in so slyly,” said he.

“How did they happen to hear of you?” questioned Joe, curiously.

“I answered an advertisement in the daily paper,” said Maurice Vane.  “Then this man, Caven, or whatever his right name may be, came to me and said he had a certain plan for making a good deal of money.  All I had to do was to invest a certain amount and inside of a few days I could clear fifteen or twenty thousand dollars.”

“That was surely a nice proposition,” said Joe, with a smile.

“I agreed to go into the scheme if it was all plain sailing and then this Caven gave me some of the details.  He said there was a demand for a certain kind of mining shares.  He knew an old miner who was sick and who was willing to sell the shares he possessed for a reasonable sum of money.  The plan was to buy the shares and then sell them to another party—­a broker—­at a big advance in price.”

“That was simple enough,” put in Andrew Mallison.

“Caven took me to see a man who called himself a broker.  He had an elegant office and looked prosperous.  He told us he would be glad to buy certain mining shares at a certain figure if he could get them in the near future.  He said a client was red-hot after the shares.  I questioned him closely and he appeared to be a truthful man.  He said some folks wanted to buy out the mine and consolidate it with another mine close by.”

“And then you came here and bought the stock of Malone?” queried Joe.

“Yes.  Caven made me promise to give him half the profits and I agreed.  I came here, and as you know, Malone, or Ball, or whatever his name is, pretended to be very sick and in need of money.  He set his price, and I came back with the cash and took the mining stock.  I was to meet Caven, alias Anderson, the next day and go to the broker with him, but Caven did not appear.  Then I grew suspicious and went to see the broker alone.  The man was gone and the office locked up.  After that I asked some other brokers about the stock, and they told me it was not worth five cents on the dollar.”

“Isn’t there any such mine at all?” asked Joe.

“Oh, yes, there is such a mine, but it was abandoned two years ago, after ten thousand dollars had been sunk in it.  They said it paid so little that it was not worth considering.”

“That is certainly too bad for you,” said Joe.  “And you can’t find any trace of Caven or Malone?”

“No, both of the rascals have disappeared completely.  I tried to trace Caven and his broker friend in Philadelphia but it was of no use.  More than likely they have gone to some place thousands of miles away.”