“The to girls Jessie Wadsworth and Laura Porter are safe in our hands. We will take good care of them but you wil haf to pay the price and do it inside of ten days or two weeks at longest. We mean busines so no funy work. We want fifty thousand dollars from you Mr. Wadsworth and from them Porters. Each of you can pay as much of the amount as you plese. We want the money in cash and wil send you word just were it is to be placed and at what time. If you fale us you will be mighty sory for we mean busines. Dont make no mistak about that. If you pay the money as we want the girls will be back home safe inside of two days and not a hare of there head harmed. Now take warning for we mean busines and wont stand for no nonsence.”
“This was either written by a very illiterate person or else by somebody who tried to make out he was such,” was Dunston Porter’s comment.
“I think it is just such a letter as one of those young gypsies might write,” answered Dave’s father. “Most of them have some education, but not a great deal.”
Both Mr. Wadsworth and Dave’s father had had a great deal of business to attend to during the past few weeks, and Dunston Porter had been kept busy assisting Mr. Basswood in turning the vacant land on the outskirts of Crumville into building plots and offering them for sale. But since the unexpected and mysterious disappearance of the two girls all thoughts of business had been brushed aside.
“Dave and Roger ought to be here almost any time now,” remarked Dunston Porter. “But what good their coming on the scene is going to do, I can’t surmise.”
“You can’t blame them for wanting to come after receiving such news,” remarked Mr. Wadsworth. “Dave, I know, thinks a great deal of his sister, and you all know that he and Jessie think a great deal of each other.”
“Yes. And I know that Roger has his eye on Laura,” answered the girl’s father. “And she thinks a great deal of the young man.”
At that moment the telephone rang, and Dunston Porter went to answer it. A telegram was telephoned to him.
“Dave and Roger are now on their way from Albany,” he announced. “They will be here in about an hour. I think I’ll run down to the depot in the auto and meet them.” And so it was arranged.
There were no passengers as eager as Dave and Roger to leave the train when it rolled into the little station at Crumville. Dunston Porter was on hand, and they gazed eagerly at his face to see if it bore any signs of good news.