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"Good, I am glad you are reasonable. Now, come with us in our automobile and withdraw the money you have in the banks." Realizing resistance was vain, Dardus obeyed. At each bank the boy's benefactors compared their private notes with the amounts the storekeeper withdrew, and, when the task was ended, Bob had fifty thousand dollars in addition to the ranch.
Occupied with considering various plans for aiding Bob, Foster quickly reached the store of Len Dardus, but as he entered and caught sight of an old, gray-haired man, with a face in which craftiness was the chief characteristic, he wondered if, after all, the police sergeant could have been right. "Is this Mr.
I made a vow when Dardus beat me on the will that when I had one hundred thousand dollars I'd track him down and solve this mystery. But now it won't be necessary to wait. "Right will conquer, every time, Bob!"
Bowing politely, he asked: "Have you seen anything of Mr. Dardus, or Bob Chester?" "Uhuh! I seen 'em both," replied the woman, nodding her head, as though to confirm her words. But though Foster remained silent in the hope that she would add to this information, he was at length obliged to renew his questions, as she vouchsafed nothing more. "Were they together?" "No."
We want you to acknowledge you lied when you told Bob his father was insane." "And if I refuse?" "You go to jail, and we take the money and ranch." "But I have no money," whimpered Dardus. "Lying won't help you. We know every cent you have in bank and where it is. Here's the confession, sign it first." Glancing from one to another, the storekeeper seemed to seek an avenue of escape.
"His mother and father died when he was three years old, and his father provided in his will that Dardus should be his guardian, though from what the boy has told us, he hasn't had any too happy a time of it, poor little shaver." "Now don't go turning on the sympathy," growled the sergeant. "I don't care whether the boy is guilty or not. All I know is that we have got to make a case against him.
It was because of this action on the part of Mr. Dardus in closing his store that Foster was unable to gain admittance when he arrived half an hour later, having come for the purpose of seeing the boy he had championed so effectively, and of assisting in a reconciliation between the ward and the guardian, in case it had not already been accomplished.
"Put this with your ten dollars," he continued. "It will help some toward getting you out West, and now you go back to Mr. Dardus, and tell him that Judge Bristol said that your arrest was an outrage. Clerk, call the next case."
Forgetting all discretion, as he saw that his plot for obtaining possession of the letter had failed, Len Dardus rushed upon the boy, with the evident purpose of obtaining it by force, exclaiming: "You won't give it to me, eh? Well, I will take it, whether you want me to or not."
The tone in which the boy spoke was cold and bitter. Yet, instead of terrifying the storekeeper, it caused him to laugh as he exclaimed: "You can't blackmail me, you ungrateful young wretch! Get out of here, before I call the police! I steal your money, indeed! Insanity seems to run in the Chester family!" "Do you think so, Len Dardus?" demanded the ranchman, suddenly emerging from the shadow.
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