CHAPTER X.
A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT.
A great deal of money changed hands that day. The stock buyers had their wallets loaded with cash when they came a-buying, for, when they had cut out the cattle they wanted, and the price was struck, they were prepared to drive them off at once.
The sales at the round-up had been large, and Ted and the boys sat up late that night, after those guests who had elected to remain over for the festivities of the next day were safely in bed, counting the money and going over the books.
"It has been a mighty good year for us, boys," said Ted, as he contemplated the total of their sales.
"Yes, and, best of all, it leaves us with all the old stock disposed of, and nothing but young and vigorous animals with which to begin building up again," said Kit, who had a great head for the cattle business and a faculty for seeing into the future.
"What aire we goin' ter do with all this yere mazuma?" asked Bud, looking over the stacks of fifties, twenties, tens, and fives that lay on the table around which they were sitting in the living room, and which was flanked by piles of gold and a few hundred-dollar bills.
"Can't get it into the bank until day after to-morrow," said Ted. "We'll be too busy to-morrow looking after our guests, and I don't suppose we'll be free until after the dance to-morrow night. Still, I'm not worrying about it. We know everybody here to-night, and I'll take care of it till we can ride over to Strongburg and bank it."
Just then the door blew open with a bang, and big Ben scurried in, bringing with him a blast of prairie wind, crisp and chill from the mountain, that scattered the greenbacks all over the room, and two or three of the fives were blown into the fire and incinerated before any one could rescue them.
"Close that door!" shouted Bud, grasping frantically at the money that was capering over the top of the table.
Ben closed the door with a slam that shook the house.
"'A fool and his money is soon parted,'" quoted Ben, when he saw the havoc wrought by the wind.
"You bet," said Kit "Three fives blew into the fireplace, and are no more. We'll just charge them to your account."
"Like dolly, you will!" said Ben.
"If it hadn't been for you they wouldn't be there. What's the reason we won't?"
"Because you won't. I didn't make the wind."
"No, but consarn ye, ye let it in, an' ye're an accessory before er after ther fact. I reckon both," said Bud.
"Let it go, boys," said Ted. "Pick up the bills, and we'll count and stack them again."
"Where have you been, anyway?" asked Kit, addressing Ben.
"Down beddin' my show for the night. They're about all in now. All except the music, which will be here in the morning," replied Ben. "I'm not at all stuck on myself, but—"
"Oh, no, you've got a very poor opinion of yourself, I guess," said Kit.
"But I want to say that I think I got the bunkie-doodelest show that ever paced the glimmering, gleaming, gloaming grass of Moon Valley."
"Listen to the hombre explode," said Bud. "He's tryin' ter be a feeble imitation o' a real showman. I'll bet he shows up ter-morrer like a ringmaster in a sucuss, with high, shiny boots an' a long whip an a tall, slick hat, an' crack his whip an' say: 'What will ther leetle lady hev next?'"
Ben blushed, for his ambitions in the show line, now that he had had a taste of it, had really been in that direction, only he wouldn't have had the boys know it for the world.
"How about the show, anyhow, Ben?" asked Ted.
"What have you got? You might as well let us know now."
"Not on your autobiography," answered Ben haughtily. "I want to say, though, that your eyes will bulge like the knobs on a washstand drawer when you see what I've got, and then come to look at the bill for such a stupendous, striking, and singularly successful aggregation of freaks, acts, and divertisements embodied in this colossal and cataclysmic congregation of—"
"Oh, cheese it," said Kit. "You give me the pip."
"All right, have it your own way," sighed Ben. "This is what a fellow gets for serving his country, from Thomas Jefferson to John D. Rockefeller."
"Come on," said Ted persuasively. "Loosen up and tell us what we are to have to-morrow. This is an executive session of the whole."
"You're like a lot of kids the day before Christmas. You've just got to see what mamma's hidden in the closet," said Ben. "Well, I'll let you in on a little of it."
"Shoot when you're ready," said Kit.
"I was over at Strongburg about a month ago, and, knowing that I'd have to rustle up a show soon, I wrote to a theatrical agent in Chicago to let me know if he could furnish me with a good amusement company at small cost. He wrote me that he had the very thing, and offered me one of these bum 'wild west' shows, with a bunch of spavined ponies, a lot of imitation cowboys, fake Indians, and Coney Island target shooters."
"An' yer didn't take 'em?" asked Bud, in surprise.
"Tush! Well, I was up against it, when Morrison, the hotel man, told me that there was a showman in town, and perhaps I might get something out of him.
"I hunted him up. He was a typical showman. Big fellow, large as a Noah's ark, dressed like a sunset, and loud as an eighteen-inch gun."
"I saw the fellow in Soldier Butte the other day. He was talking to Wiley Creviss in the bank," said Ted. "You've described him more picturesquely than I should, but I'm convinced he's the same man."
"I asked him what he had, and he told me he could furnish me on short notice anything from a three-ring circus to a hand organ and monkey," continued Ben. "I told him how much money I wanted to spend, and he said he'd fix me up a show that would make everybody delighted, and I told him to go ahead. The show blew in to-night, and ran up their tents down near the corral."
"How many have you got in it?"
"I've got a balloon ascension for the afternoon, a giant and a midget, a magician, an Egyptian fortune teller, a trick mule, a Circassian beauty, and a strong man." Ben looked around proudly, and the boys burst into peals of laughter.
"Have you scraped the mold off of them yet?" asked Kit.
"How's that?" asked Ben haughtily.
"Have you pulled the burs off the chestnuts?"
"See here, what do you mean? Are you casting aspersions on my show?"
"Not exactly, but I think you've been stung by some old stranded side show that was taking the tie route back home. Circassian beaut! Ho-ho, likewise ha-ha! and some more."
"Ter say nothin' o' a Egyptian fortune teller from Popodunk, Ioway, an' a wild man from ther Quaker village. Oh! give me ther smellin' salts. I'm goin' ter hev ther histrikes," laughed Bud.
"Haf you not got a echukated vooly pig und a feller vot 'eats 'em alife'?" asked Carl.
"That's right, Dutchy. It's a bum show what ain't got them," laughed Bud.
The boys were laughing until the house rang with it, and Stella poked her pretty head out of the door to ask to be told the joke. Bud complied, with many humorous embellishments.
"Don't pay any attention to them, Ben," said Stella sympathetically, "I'll take in the show from start to finish."
"Could friendship go any farther than that?" asked Kit pathetically.
"Oh, you fellows give me a pain," said Ben, rising and stalking off to bed.
He was soon followed by the others, Ted and Kit remaining behind to gather up the money and slip rubber bands around each of the packages of currency.
"We ought to have a safe in the house, Ted," said Kit, looking over the pile of money. "We often have large sums of money in the house, and some time we might get robbed."
"There's not much danger of that, Kit," answered Ted. "There are not many fellows who would have the nerve to come into this house. Too many guns, and too many fellows who are not afraid to shoot them. I'm not afraid."
"What was that?"
Kit was staring at the rear window.
"What?"
"I just looked up and thought I saw a face at the window."
"You're getting imaginative."
Just then the clock struck twelve.
"No, I don't think so. I heard a slight cracking noise and looked up. Something white appeared at the window for an instant. It looked like the face of a child."
"Nonsense. A child couldn't look through that window. It's seven feet from the ground."
"Well, I suppose I was mistaken. Let's hide that money and go to bed."
"Where shall we put it?"
Kit looked around the room, then smiled.
"Why, in the cubby-hole, of course. There's a safe for you. We haven't used it for so long that I'd almost forgotten it."
"The very thing. Nobody'd find it there in a blue moon."
They crossed over to a corner of the room and threw back the corner of a rug. Where the baseboard was mortised at the corner there appeared to have been a patch put in. Ted placed his hand against this, near the top, and it tipped back. It was hung on a pivot, and, as its top went in and the bottom came out, there was revealed a boxlike receptacle about two feet long and six inches deep.
"This is a bully place," said Ted, placing the packages of money within it. "It is known to only five of us, and I'll bet that most of us have forgotten its very existence."
The board was turned back into place and the rug spread out again.
"Safe as in the Strongburg Bank," said Kit. "Well, me for the feathers. We're going to be kept humping to-morrow. Buenas noches."
In a few minutes the big ranch house was dark and quiet; every person in it was sound asleep.
Ted Strong had sunk into a deep and untroubled sleep, for his day had been very active, and he was tired when he lay down.
But he had not been sleeping more than a half hour when he found himself sitting straight up in bed, very wide-awake, and wondering why.
"Something wrong in the house," he muttered to himself.
He sniffed the air to discover the smell of smoke. But it was not that.
Had he locked up? He went over his actions just before retiring, and was sure that he had attended faithfully to everything.
The money! The thought came to him like a blow.
Something had happened to the money.
He was out of bed in a jiffy and slipped into his trousers, and, grabbing his revolver from beneath his pillow, he opened the door and walked softly along the hall in his bare feet.
The hall opened into the living room through an arch in which a portière, made of small pieces of bamboo strung together, was hung.
As he looked cautiously into the living room his elbow struck this, and it rattled sharply in the stillness.
He had heard a faint creak, and, as he peeped around the corner of the arch, he saw dimly the figure of a man near the door, evidently just in the act of opening it.
With a succession of noiseless leaps Ted was across the room, and arrived at the door just as it swung open and the man was about to depart.
But Ted was upon his back with the swiftness of a bobcat, and they came together to the floor with? a crash.
The burglar was beneath, but this did not prevent him from fighting with a desperation that lent strength to his already strong and lithe body.
He was slenderer and younger than Ted, who could feel it in the fellow's build as they struggled.
"Let me out, or I'll kill you," said the burglar, and Ted saw the flash of a knife.
At the same moment something rushed past them in the dark, and out of the door.
As Ted saw it dimly it was small, and its motions were awkward and lumbering. He thought it was a dog, and was about to raise his revolver to fire at it when he thought better of it, as he did not want to arouse the household if he could conquer his man without making a noise.
"Don't shoot," said the man, who had observed Ted's motion with the gun.
At this extraordinary request Ted paused.
He had twisted the man's wrist until he dropped the knife, and then shoved it beyond reach with the muzzle of his revolver.
His strong left hand was in the nape of the fellow's neck, and Ted had his nose ground into the rug. He had found a gun in the fellow's hip pocket, and relieved him of it.
Then Ted rose, and told his captive to get up
Slowly he did so, and Ted made him move to the center of the room.
Bud's golden head appeared around the corner of the doorway.
Ted could just distinguish it.
"Who's that?" asked Bud.
"It's Ted. Come in and strike a light. I've caught something."
In a moment a light flared up.
"Jack Farley!" exclaimed Ted, in astonishment.
"Yes, blast you, Jack Farley," replied the youth.
"Couldn't keep away, eh?"
"A feller'd think thet once was enough," said Bud.
"I couldn't help myself. I had to come," growled Farley.
"Well, this time you'll stay. You shan't abuse our hospitality again. Bud, get a rope and tie our friend. He's skittish, and is likely to run away if he's turned loose."
Farley was soon tied securely.
"Keep an eye on him, Bud," said Ted. "I want to look over the premises."
Ted went directly to the corner and pushed back the pivot door, struck a match, and looked into the box.
It was empty.
Then, turning back to Farley, he searched him thoroughly.
There was no money in his pockets.
Ted called up Kit, and the three of them ransacked the living room thoroughly, but not a dollar could be found. "What did you do with the money you stole from that hole?" said Ted, gazing fiercely into Farley's eyes.
"I haven't seen a dollar of it," was the reply.