CHAPTER XXIV.
AN APPEAL TO BIAL KEENE.
“There is the house, Frank,” declared Wiley. “I am dead sure of it. I saw them shanghai Abe. I saw them chuck him into the cab. I was too late to render assistance, but like a bloodhound on the trail I followed that cab.”
Frank Merriwell and Wiley were standing in the dark shadow of a building almost directly across the street from the house into which the hunchback lad had been taken. Having completed his business in St. Joseph sooner than he thought he could, Merry returned to his hotel in Kansas City and found Wiley almost tearing his hair in despair. Overjoyed by Frank’s appearance, the sailor lost no time in telling how he had dined with Abe in the restaurant, had left the boy outside to return for his pipe, and, on again leaving the restaurant, had seen the unfortunate lad bundled into the cab and carried off. Fleet of foot as a deer, Wiley had followed the cab, but had found no opportunity to rescue the captured boy. Nevertheless, he had spotted the house into which Abe was taken, had obtained its number, and the name of the street, and was contemplating the advisability of appealing to the police when Frank showed up.
Merry commanded the sailor to take him to the house.
“Unless he was taken out as soon as they brought him here,” asserted Wiley, “he is still there.”
“An obvious fact, if you have made no error. Cap’n, I am afraid I will never be able to trust you again. Whenever I do you fail me. I warned you to look out for Abe.”
“Crush not my sensitive spirits with incrimination,” entreated the marine marvel. “Why should I have anticipated trouble for Abe at such a time? Your enemies seemed beaten to a white froth, and before you I fancied there was nothing but peace and salubrity.”
“Whenever I crush one enemy,” muttered Frank, “it seems that another rises to take his place.”
“You are certain this is a plot of your enemies?”
“What else can it be? Why should any one kidnap that boy unless they did it to injure me in some manner?”