“Maybe he did and they made him a prisoner,” suggested Mr. Wadsworth. “Tony was very faithful—the best watchman I ever had.”
Daylight came at last and still the search for the two robbers was kept up. In the meantime, telegrams and telephone messages had been sent in all directions. To stimulate the searchers Mr. Wadsworth offered a reward of one thousand dollars for the recovery of the jewels and this reward was later on increased to five thousand dollars.
When Tony Wells was well enough to tell his story he said he had been going the rounds of the works when he suddenly found himself confronted by two masked men. He had started to cry out and run for help when the men had seized him and thrown him down and bound him fast to a work-bench. Then the men had gone to the offices, and later on had come the explosion. He knew they were blowing open the safes and did what he could to free himself. At last he managed to get free, but found himself too weak to run for help. He had dragged himself to the telephone in the shipping-room and was sending his message to Mr. Wadsworth when the masked men had again appeared and knocked him down. That was all he remembered until the time he was found, as already described.
“You did not see the faces of the two men?” asked Oliver Wadsworth.
“No, sir, they were all covered with black masks. But I think the fellows was rather young-like,” answered the old watchman. “Both of ’em was about the size of Dave Porter,—but neither of ’em was Dave,—I know that by the voices,” he went on, hastily.
“No, Dave was at home with me,” said Oliver Wadsworth. “But he and one of his friends passed the works just before the explosion.”
The news of the robbery had upset the Wadsworth household completely. Mrs. Wadsworth was as much distressed as her husband, and Jessie was as pale as if seriously ill.
“Oh, Dave, supposing the jewels are not recovered!” said Jessie, when they met in the hallway. “It will ruin father,—I heard him tell mamma so!”
“We are going to get them back—we’ve simply got to do it,” Dave replied.
“But how? Nobody seems to know what has become of the robbers.”