PLOTTING AGAINST DICK ROVER
"Gabe Werner!"
"Where is he?"
"Up the street," answered Randy. "Come on after him."
"Who's the man you are after?" questioned one of the men who had been
interviewing Andy and Fred.
"He's a young fellow who once went to a military academy with us. He's a
regular bully and did something for which he ought to be locked up," was
Fred's reply, and then he rushed down into the street, following his
three cousins.
"How can Gabe Werner be down here?" questioned Andy. "Why, we left him
in New York City!"
"I can't help that, Andy. It was Werner just as sure as I am standing
here. I just happened to glance out of the window and saw him crossing
the roadway. He turned his face straight toward me, and I couldn't help
but recognize him."
"Where did he go?"
"I'll point out the place when we get there."
By this time the four Rovers had left the boardwalk and were plowing
along on the side of the road through mud that varied from an inch to
six inches in depth. They had started to run, but were soon compelled to
slow up.
"Gee, this is something fierce!" panted Andy.
"Oh, you cinder path!" chanted his twin. "Wouldn't you like to do a
hundred-yard dash on this road?"
"It's not much farther," announced Jack. "I saw him heading for that
shack yonder."
The place he mentioned was a small building erected of rough boards,
with a galvanized roof. They neared the shack to find two men sitting
before it on a log smoking their pipes. They appeared somewhat startled.
"Did a young fellow just pass this way?" questioned Jack quickly.
The two men looked at the Rovers curiously, and then one shook his head.
"Don't think he did, Stranger. I didn't see anybody, did you, Tom?"
"No," was the positive answer.
By the look on their faces Jack felt that the men were not telling the
truth. Yet what he was to do he did not know.
"Maybe he went back to that garage," he suggested, pointing to a smaller
building in the rear.
"Look around if you think anybody is there," said the first man who had
spoken, and the boys hurried down to the garage, which stood open. As
they did this one of the men sauntered into the shack.
"Say, what's the meaning of this?" he demanded of Gabe Werner, who stood
hiding behind a door.
"I'll tell you as soon as they go away," was the answer of the former
bully of Colby Hall. "Don't let them come in here and see me."
"All right, they sha'n't come in," was the man's laconic reply; and then
he went outside again, to resume his smoking.
Having walked around the garage and peered inside, the four Rovers
walked again to the shack. The man who had just come out of the building
leered at them.
"Didn't find the fellow you were after, did you?" he queried.
"No," answered Jack shortly. He did not like the appearance of the man
in the least.
"Want to see him particularly?"
"I want to give him a good thrashing--that's what I want to do!"
exclaimed Jack. "And after that I might turn him over to the police, if
there is any such thing in this town."
"We haven't any police here. We run things to suit ourselves."
"What do you want to lick him for?" questioned the other man.
"He threw pepper in my eyes once, and he's done a lot of other things he
oughtn't to have done," returned Jack, and then turned back to the
hotel, and his cousins followed.
"Those two men were on the hotel veranda when we first went there," said
Randy. "I noticed them, and I did not like their looks at all."
"Do you know what I think?" returned Jack. "I believe Gabe Werner was in
that shack all the time. I think he must have seen us coming and given
those fellows the tip. They both tried to appear cool, but they were
both flustered."
"But what can Gabe Werner be doing in this out-of-the-way place?"
demanded Fred.
"He probably came here, Fred, just for the excitement. Hundreds of young
fellows have drifted to the oil fields just as years ago they drifted to
the gold fields. They gamble in oil stocks and do what they can, trying
to strike it rich. It's a great temptation to any fellow who hasn't a
well-paying job at home."
"But Gabe Werner ought to be going to school," put in Andy.
"True, Andy. But Gabe himself thinks he is old enough to do as he
pleases. Evidently from the way he acts his folks can no longer control
him."
When the boys got back to the hotel they found Dick Rover looking for
them. He listened in surprise to what they had to say.
"It certainly is odd if that Gabe Werner is here," he said. "And more
than likely you are right--otherwise that fellow wouldn't have taken
such pains to hide himself. Well, if he is here, you must watch that he
doesn't play any more tricks on you."
A fair supper was had at the hotel. During the meal both Fred and Andy
noticed that the two men who had questioned them in the hotel office
concerning the Lorimer Spell claim were watching their Uncle Dick
closely.
"They seem to want to know all about our business," said Fred, when
mentioning this to his uncle.
"Oh, that's the case in every oil town or mining camp," answered Dick
Rover. "Men are always anxious to get a lead, as they call it, on what
is going to happen next. If they think a fellow may strike it rich in
some particular location they rush after him like a flock of sheep and
try to get claims as close to him as possible."
After the meal was finished the boys took a walk around the town to see
how the place looked at night and thinking they might possibly run
across Gabe Werner.
The narrow street with the single boardwalk was crowded with people,
some well dressed and others in the roughest of costumes. There was loud
talking and jesting, and most of the pedestrians seemed to be in good
humor, although occasionally they would pass a group evidently out of
luck and willing to let everybody know it.
"No more oil fields for me!" they heard one man exclaim, as he lunged
past, evidently partly under the influence of liquor. "I've sunk
forty-five thousand dollars in wells already, and not a sniff of gas to
show for it. I'm through!"
"That's the other side of the picture," remarked Randy. "Evidently he's
got rid of every cent he had, and now he's so downhearted he is taking
to drink."
"I don't see where he can get it in these days," said Fred.
"Oh, they manage to get it somehow."
The moving picture theater was open, and a crowd was swarming inside.
The pictures were old and of a wild Western nature, and none of the lads
had any desire to see them. They passed on and looked into the windows
of a couple of the general stores, where everything from matches to
bedding seemed to be for sale. Then they came to a corner where there
was a side street which was little more than an alleyway. Along this
were a dozen or more shanties set in anything but a regular row.
On the corner was a flaring banner announcing that here was located the
Famous California Chop Suey Restaurant. Behind the small dirty windows
ten or fifteen men were eating at half a dozen tables covered with
oilcloth.
"Look!" exclaimed Fred, pointing in through the open door of the
restaurant. "There are those same men who were at our hotel. Evidently
they can't be stopping there--or at least they don't eat there."
"Isn't it queer that they should hang around our hotel and then come
down here for a meal?" remarked Randy.
"They're talking to another man--somebody who wasn't at our hotel," said
Fred. "Just see how excited they seem to be!" he added quickly, after
one of the men drew a paper from his pocket and all of them bent over it
with interest.
Then the stranger of the crowd began to talk to the others very
earnestly.
"Let us walk down the alleyway, and perhaps we can find out something
about those men," suggested Jack. "You say they asked about Lorimer
Spell and his claim? They may know something that my dad would like to
find out."
"All right," said Fred.
The four Rovers turned the corner of the restaurant and walked slowly
down the alleyway along a narrow cinder path. This path ran close to the
side of the building, and here were located several small windows, one
of them close to where stood the table at which the men inside were
seated.
"It's a mighty good thing that we ran across those Rovers the very day
they came in," one of the men was saying. "If it hadn't been for that
they might have gone up to the Lorimer Spell claim and done something
that would queer the whole thing."
"Oh, I don't think they could do that, Tate," returned the man whom the
lads had not seen before. "You know at the best Spell's claim on the
land was not perfectly clear."
"Well, that's how you look at it, Davenport," said another of the men.
"You must remember, Lorimer Spell had a good many friends in this
neighborhood. Of course he was a queer Dick and all that sort of thing,
but in spite of that folks here would want to have Spell's wishes in
this matter upheld."
"Oh, I know we run some risk," returned the man called Davenport. "But I
think the stake is worth it."
"To be sure it is!" came from one of the others.
"The question is," came from the man named Tate, "how are we going to
get at it? Do you think you'll be able to see the documents this man
Rover must carry?"
"Of course I'll see them. I'll get at them some way," returned Carson
Davenport firmly. He was a large-built man, with coal-black eyes and
black hair and his face had a rather cruel expression.
"Somebody said that Lorimer Spell placed his valuables in some safe
deposit vault," went on one of the men. "In that case, this Richard
Rover wouldn't have them."
"I don't see why not," said another. "If he became Spell's heir he would
have a right to do anything, and the bank would have to give the
documents up."
More talk of a like nature followed, and the Rover boys listened with
keen interest to every word that was said. They recognized in Carson
Davenport the man who had written to Jack's father hoping to get the
latter interested in some fake oil companies, trusting that The Rover
Company in New York City would be able to dispose of the worthless
stocks to their customers--people who trusted them implicitly in all
their financial transactions. While these negotiations were going on
Jake Tate, Davenport's right-hand man, had learned that Lorimer Spell
was dead and that he had made Dick Rover his sole heir. This was at a
time when Tate and Davenport, as well as the other men, were trying to
get possession of the Spell land, feeling sure that there was oil on it.
They had been on the point of communicating with Dick Rover, thinking
they might get the claim away from him, when he had surprised the whole
crowd by his unexpected appearance in Columbina.
"We've got to have quick action in this," declared Jake Tate. "The
longer we delay the worse off we'll be."
"Yes, but you've got to find out about those papers first," said one of
the other men, lighting a cigar.
"You leave me to do that," said Carson Davenport. "I'm sure I know
exactly how to handle this man Rover."
"He must be a pretty shrewd fellow, Davenport. Otherwise he wouldn't be
holding such an important position in that Wall Street company,"
remarked Tate.
"I've handled men like that before. You leave it to me."
"But you don't want him to suspect anything is off color," said one of
the other men.
"I'm not so green, Jackson. I wasn't born yesterday."
"Didn't you say you thought this Rover had a lot of money?"
"Yes, the whole family has money. But, at the same time, that has
nothing to do with it. I'll tell you what I propose to do," continued
Carson Davenport earnestly. "I'll wait until I am sure that he----"
This was as much as the Rover boys heard for the time being. Around the
corner of the building from the main street had come three figures. They
had been abreast, but now they approached on the cinder path in single
file. As they came closer the lights from the restaurant fell on their
faces, and to their intense surprise the four Rovers recognized Gabe
Werner, Nappy Martell, and Slugger Brown.