“That’s yours, Dick,” cried Charley. “Don’t you see what it says?”
“For you, Dick Darrell,” were the words scrawled over the paper in letters at least six inches long.
CHAPTER XII.
INTO THE BOILING POT.
“That’s Mudd’s work, sure,” exclaimed Dick, and he pulled out the knife and picked the paper up, turning it over and finding the following written on the other side:
“Friends or enemies—which?—I swore to kill you. On certain conditions I am willing to let you live—$100,000—you understand—but we can’t get together by keeping apart. Shall I come to you or will you come to me? I shall be in this hut at midnight and alone and you must come alone if you want to meet me. It will pay you, Dick Darrell, and you need fear nothing. If you do not come I shall take it to mean that I shall come to you. It will be too late to talk about the $100,000 then, for when I come I come to kill. Yours any way you like to take me, Mudd.”
“Well!” exclaimed Charley, for Dick had been reading aloud, “that’s a most remarkable communication. What on earth does it all mean?”
“Rubbish!” cried Dick. “He must think I am a born idiot. Still it shows the fellow is watching us.”
“I don’t know about that. There may be more in it than you think for. Are you going to do as he says?”
“Well, I think I see myself,” laughed Dick. “If he wants to come to me let him try it. I’m ready for him.”
“I wouldn’t do it that way. I’d come to the hut and let me and Doctor Dan hang around somewhere. If we could once capture Mr. Martin Mudd his name would be mud for fair and we could find out then exactly what has become of the girl.”