"Joe Lorey!" Frank exclaimed. "What can he want down here?"
"Who knows? Maybe to finish the work he began in the mountains."
"More than likely," Holton ventured. "A rifleshot in the back, or a match touched to a building."
"I don't believe it," Frank said stoutly. "The man who laid down his weapons to give me a fair, square fight, wouldn't stoop to things like that."
"'Pears to me the man who fired that bomb 'u'd do most anythin'," said Holton.
"That was in a fit of anger. Lorey swore to Madge that he thought better of his impulse to do murder, stamped upon the burning fuse, and believed that he had put it out, and I believe him."
He saw, now, that his aunt was badly frightened, and cautioned the other men. "Not another word about him, now, at any rate, or Aunt 'Lethe won't once close her eyes to-night."
"Well," said the Colonel, quite agreeing with him and hastening to change the subject, "here's something much more interesting, anyway. A letter from the Company. Looks official and important."
Frank took the letter, opened it and gazed at it in some dismay. "I should think so," he exclaimed. "An assessment of $15,000 on my stock."
"Fifteen thousand devils!"