“Just tell them you have a pretty good clue to where the bonds and jewels are hidden and they’ll let you search to your heart’s content,” Mr. Hardy advised.

“Come on then, Joe. We’ll have that thousand dollar reward before the morning is over.”

Their father glanced at them shrewdly.

“Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,” he said. And then, as the boys hastened out of the den, he called after them: “Also, you might remember the old proverb that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

But the Hardy boys scarcely heard him, so eager were they to begin searching the old tower and so confident were they that the mystery was about to be cleared up.