Seeing Jack’s predicament, Pepper, Andy, and Dale rushed at the fellow called Paul and dragged him backward. But he would not let go his hold upon the young major, and Pepper hit him over the wrist with the stick. Then the man’s hand dropped, and Jack staggered back.
“We must make him a prisoner!” cried Andy, and they caught the man and held him, while Jack got a rope from the sleigh. Soon the other man was also bound. George Strong had had his hands tied behind him, and he was quickly released.
“You do not know how thankful I am that you came,” said the assistant, warmly. “I—I imagine things were getting black for me.”
“Let me go!” thundered the man called Bart. “I want my million dollars!” And he glared wildly at George Strong and at the others.
“Do you know these men at all?” questioned Captain Putnam.
“I do, sir. I am sorry to say they are distant relatives of mine—third cousins. Both of them used to be rich, but they went into an oil speculation, and it failed, and they lost almost all of their money. That seemed to turn their heads, and somehow they got a notion that I was holding back a family treasure from them, a treasure they said was worth one or two million dollars.”
“Is there such a treasure?” asked Jack, curiously.
“I don’t think so, although the story is told in our family that one of my ancestors, during the Revolution, buried a pot of gold to keep the English soldiers from getting it. But the amount could not have been anything like a million.”
“Those men were around the Hall a number of times,” said Jack. “They were the mysterious fellows I mentioned a long time ago.”
“Yes, they came to see me on the sly if they could. I believe, had they gotten the chance, they would have carried me off in their sloop.”