News of Importance
"Don't be alarmed; he is not going to shoot," cried Paul.
"Don't ye make too shure o' thet," ejaculated the cowboy. "Wot's he
puttin' his hand into his pocket fer?"
"He has something there I fancy he wishes to conceal," went on Paul.
"Empty the pocket, please."
"Let me go! This is highway robbery!" stormed Captain Grady.
He struggled fiercely to regain his feet. But Blowfen was the stronger
of the pair and he easily held the rascal down with one hand, while with
the other he brought several letters from his inside pocket.
Paul eagerly snatched the letters, in spite of the captain's protest. He
glanced at them, with Chet looking over his shoulder.
"Well, what do you make out?" asked Caleb Dottery. He didn't quite like
the way matters were turning.
"I think we will be safe in making Captain Grady a prisoner," replied
Paul slowly.
"Yes, make him a prisoner by all means," put in Chet. "He is a villain
if ever there was one. If we can't prove it I think my Uncle Barnaby
can."
At the reference to Barnaby Winthrop Captain Grady grew pale. It was
evident that his sins were at last finding him out.
It did not take Jack Blowfen long to act upon Paul's suggestion. He
disarmed the captain and made him march into the house, where he bound
the fellow in very much the same manner as Dottery had bound Jeff Jones.
While he was doing so Paul showed the letters taken from the prisoner to
Caleb Dottery. Chet, while a second reading was going on, commenced to
ransack the house.
The captain had moved but a few things into the ranch home--a couple of
chairs, a table, a bed, and an old hair trunk. The trunk Chet opened
without ceremony.
More letters were found there--documents which told only too plainly
what manner of man the captain was. Chet smiled to himself to think how
foolish the rascal had been not to have destroyed the epistles.
"But the greatest of villains occasionally over-reach themselves," he
said to Paul. "I fancy this is proof enough to show what an awfully bad
man Captain Grady is."
"You are right, Chet," said Dottery, after a careful examination. "He is
a hoss thief as great as was old Sol Davids, and he is trying to rob yer
uncle out of a mine claim as well."
"Not only that, but as Jeff Jones said, he is with the crowd who holds
my uncle a prisoner, sir. That, to me is the worst part of it."
"I don't know but what ye are right."
The captain was raising such a row that to quiet him Jack Blowfen threw
him bodily into a dark closet and turned the key on him.
"Now if ye don't quit yer noise, I'll gag ye in the bargain," said the
cowboy, and thereupon the captain became quiet at once.
It was now quite in line to hold a council of war, as Paul termed it.
But before this was done all hands went to work to move the Winthrop
household effects back to where they belonged.
This was accomplished in a short space of time, and was productive of an
accident which, while not excessively serious, was still of sufficient
importance to cause a decided change in their plans.
In moving in an old, heavy bedstead Caleb Dottery allowed the end he
held to slip from his grasp. A sharp corner came down on his ankle,
twisting it severely. He cried with pain and work was at once suspended.
The ankle was bandaged, but it was found the old ranch owner could not
walk, nor could he move about with any degree of comfort. He was placed
on a couch and there he remained.
The four talked matters over for a long while. In one of Captain Grady's
letters was mentioned a certain cave in the vicinity of what was then
known as the Albany Claim. The boys fancied that their uncle might be a
prisoner in that cave.
"Well, I dunno but what ye are right," mused Jack Blowfen. "It's
sartinly wuth going to see."
"Then you advise us to go?" asked Paul, eagerly.
"Yes, and I'll go with ye."
"But Mr. Dottery," began Chet.
"I'll stay whar I am an' watch the captain," groaned the old ranch
owner. "It's about all I'm good for jes' now."
"The old Albany Claim is a good stiff forty miles an' more from hyer,"
said Jack Blowfen. "But I know the road over the second foothills
perfectly. So if ye say the word any time we'll start."
"It looks like rain just now," said Paul.
"An' ye'll catch it heavy, too," put in Dottery.
"We'll have to look after the cattle, too," added Chet. "Like as not
half of them are in the sink hole."
"I'll help ye with the stock," said Blowfen.
That evening it rained in torrents, but only for a short while. By
midnight it was as clear as it could be. Long before sunrise the boys
and Blowfen were out on the range looking up the heads belonging to the
Winthrops.
They were gratified to find that all the stock was safe with a single
exception. That was an old cow who had been caught in the cyclone and
killed. Not one of the four-footed beasts had gone anywhere near the
sink hole.
When let out of the closet Captain Grady begged hard for his liberty.
But the boys were obdurate and Caleb Dottery backed them up, as did
Jack Blowfen.
"Ye have done wrong an' must suffer," said the latter, and there the
matter rested.
By nine o'clock the two boys and Blowfen were off. They took with them
enough provisions to last several days, as the journey upon which they
were about to enter would be for the greater part through a dry and
unproductive section. This same section has now been made, by a system
of irrigation, very productive.
"And now to find Uncle Barnaby and bring our enemies to terms!" cried
Paul, as they rode out of the stockade.
"So say I, and may uncle be found well," added Chet.
"Amen," murmured Jack Blowfen.