"I tell you I want those papers! They are mine!" screamed Carson Davenport, and now he made another struggle to get them.
In the mêlée which followed Corporal Dunning was hit by the oil well promoter, who in return received a blow full in the mouth which loosened several of his teeth.
"If those are my father's papers they must be the same that were stolen from him while we were stopping at a hotel here," said Jack. "Several men entered one of our rooms and my father was knocked down from behind, and while he was unconscious the men took the papers and ran away. They were papers relating to the Lorimer Spell claim."
"Then tell your father that Corporal John Dunning, who is stopping at O'Brian's Hotel, has them and will give them up to him just as soon as he can prove his property," said the ex-soldier, as he placed the documents in an inside pocket.
By this time two under-sheriffs had arrived on the scene, and they were wanting to know if their services were required. Tate, Jackson, and one or two others, for purely personal reasons, were in favor of hushing the matter up, but not so Corporal Dunning or the Rover boys.
"If he is the man who knocked my father down and robbed him, I want him arrested," declared Jack.
"He ought to be arrested if he did anything like that," acquiesced Dunning. "I'm through with him! No more work for me at his place!"
"If you want another job I guess my father's foreman, Nick Ogilvie, will be glad to take you on," answered Jack quickly. "You know, my dad is an ex-service man, too. And so are my cousins' fathers," he added, motioning to the other boys.
Carson Davenport blustered and tried to protest, and so did Tate and Jackson. But it was all of no avail, and in the end the oil well promoter was marched off by the under-sheriffs to the local lockup. Then Tate and Jackson hurried away, looking anything but pleased.
"If he's exposed, he'll expose us too," said Tate sourly.