The two talked the matter over for half an hour and then Dick telephoned to a telegraph station and sent a telegram to Tom stating he was starting for Maporah immediately and that Sam would probably follow in a day or two.
“Somebody will have to go down to the office in the morning,” said Dick. “I’ll take the midnight train for Chicago. You can follow just as soon as you can fix things up in Wall Street,” and so it was arranged.
Although he did not know it, Dick Rover’s departure for the Grand Central Terminal was noted by a young man who was watching the three Rover houses from the other side of Riverside Drive. This person was none other than the fellow who had introduced himself to the Rover boys as Joe Brooks. And it was Brooks, acting on information sent to him by telegraph by Davenport, who had made the demands in the letters received by Dick and Sam.
“Going West, eh?” muttered Brooks to himself, after he saw Dick on his way on the midnight limited. “I’ll have to let Davenport know about this,” and he immediately forwarded a cipher dispatch. Then he returned to the vicinity of the Rover homes to learn if possible what Sam Rover intended to do.
He remained around the vicinity for more than an hour, then returned to his hotel to snatch a few hours’ sleep. But he was up by seven o’clock and once more on the watch, and he followed Sam down into Wall Street and at noon saw Sam also depart for Maporah. Then he sent an additional dispatch to Davenport.
“I think I might as well go out West myself now,” he told himself after the dispatch had been forwarded. “There is no use of letting Davenport and that crowd get their fists on one hundred and fifty thousand dollars when I’m not around. If I’m not on hand they may forget all the work I’ve done on the case. I’m entitled to my full share of whatever comes in, and I intend to have it.” A few hours later he too departed for the West, getting a ticket for Allways. He traveled as he was as far as Chicago. But there, before changing to the other train, he donned the costume of a Westerner and put on a wig of sandy gray hair which made him look considerably older than he was.
Although he had not said a word to anybody about it, Dick Rover carried with him on his Western trip the equivalent of seventy-five thousand dollars, part in cash and part in Liberty Bonds. When Sam left the city at noon the day following he carried a like amount of cash and securities, the two sums making the total of the amount demanded by the rascals who were holding the four boys for ransom.
“If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll have to pony up and let it go at that,” was the way Dick had expressed himself before leaving. “Just the same, I hope we won’t have to give up a cent, and that we can catch those rascals red-handed.”
Dick hoped greatly that Tom would have good news for him on his arrival. But he was doomed to disappointment. Tom rode over to the Maporah station to meet his brother, and one look at his face told Dick that so far the hunt for the missing boys had proved fruitless.
“I’m keeping the thing as quiet as possible,” said Tom, whose eyes showed that he had slept but little the past few nights. “But I’ve got Cal Corning, Hank Butts, Lew Billings, and half a dozen other men hunting high and low for the boys. So far though they haven’t turned up the slightest clew, and I haven’t been able to get a clew myself, although I’ve been riding up and down one trail and another and making inquiries of every one I met. Not a soul seems to have seen them since they were at Lake Gansen.”