“Sh!” warned Mr. Gordon. “Dear lady, I’ve set my heart on staging a little climax; don’t spoil it. To-morrow morning at eleven o’clock we’ll have all the explanations. Now, Bob, what happened to you? I hear you nearly frightened your aunts into hysterics, to say nothing of Betty, whom I found tearing around Flame City hunting for a telephone.”
Bob was in a fever of curiosity to know about the farm, whether Mr. Gordon thought there was a good prospect of oil or not, but Uncle Dick was not the kind of man to have his decisions debated. Bob wisely concluded to wait with what patience he could until the proper time. He turned to Betty.
“You know when we separated to hunt for Daisy?” he said. “Well, I went through the first field all right, but when I was passing those two old apple trees that have grown together, Fluss and Blosser jumped out and one of ’em threw a coat over my head so I couldn’t shout. They downed me, and then Fluss stuffed his handkerchief in my mouth while Blosser tied my hands and feet. Daisy was behind the tree. I figured out they had come and got her, and I was mighty glad we had agreed to separate. I don’t doubt they would have bound and gagged you, too, Betty, if you had been with me. They wouldn’t stop at anything.
“They carried me to the barn loft——” Betty jumped a little. “Yes, I was up there when you were milking. Awfully hot up there in the hay it was, too. They were hiding near us when we planned to drop the bar as a signal, and I heard them laughing over that trick half the night. They slept up there with me—I was nearly dead for a drink of water—and once during the night Fluss did go down to the pump and bring me a drink, standing over me with that big club in case I should cry out when they took out the gag.
“This morning they watched and saw you ride off on Clover. They were in a panic for fear you would come back with some one before they could persuade the aunts to sell. I wish you could have seen them brushing each other off and shining their shoes on a horse blanket. They wanted to look stylish and as though they had just come from town instead of sleeping in a hayloft all night.”
“They said they had stayed in Flame City over night,” said Miss Hope indignantly. “The idea!”
“They had several,” grinned Bob. “I certainly put in an anxious hour up there after they had gone down the ladder. You see, I didn’t know Betty was going for Uncle Dick, and I didn’t know that any one else would say there was oil on the place. Fluss had a roll of bills as big as your arm, and I pictured him flashing that and Aunt Hope so anxious to send me to school that she wouldn’t leave a margin for herself and Aunt Charity to live on. If I had known that Uncle Dick was coming, I’d have saved myself a heap of worry.”
“If I had had to telephone to him, it would have been too late,” said Betty. “I just happened to find him in the post-office; didn’t I, Uncle Dick?”
“I’d just got back from the fields and was after mail,” Mr. Gordon explained. “I meant to stop and get directions from the Watterbys how to find the Saunders farm. Well, as it happened, everything was planned for the best.”
“How did you get down from the loft, Bob?” Betty asked curiously.