Chapter 5

Raven’s Mouth was hidden behind a wall of rock.

The entrance to the old mine was almost impossible to see.

Inside, the air was cold.

Their flashlights revealed abandoned mining equipment.

Clara found a wooden crate.

Inside were gold coins.

Daniel stared.

“The treasure.”

Clara shook her head.

“Your paper said the gold isn’t there.”

Daniel picked up a coin.

It was real.

Old.

Valuable.

But underneath it was something more interesting.

A piece of newspaper.

The headline was dated 1931.

MINING COMPANY REPORTS MASSIVE GOLD SHIPMENT MISSING.

Daniel read the article.

The company had transported millions of dollars in gold through Black Pine.

The shipment vanished.

No one knew where it went.

The legend had survived for generations.

But there was a problem.

The newspaper claimed the shipment disappeared before Thomas and Samuel were born.

So why had their fathers been searching for it?

Clara found a second article.

This one was dated thirty years later.

A former miner claimed the gold had been discovered.

Then he disappeared.

Daniel looked at the map.

A red line continued beyond the mine.

They followed it.

At the end of the tunnel, they found a wall covered in names.

Some were miners.

Others were marked with dates.

Most had the same symbol beside them.

A pine tree.

Clara touched one name.

“Samuel.”

Daniel stopped.

Her father’s name was carved into the wall.

Beneath it was another.

THOMAS.

And beneath Thomas:

RICHARD.

Daniel’s uncle.

He stepped back.

“My uncle knew about this.”

Clara looked at him.

“Maybe he was one of the four men.”

Daniel stared at the scratched photograph in his hand.

For the first time, the erased face didn’t feel like a mystery.

It felt like a warning.