"Are they rich?"
"They are fairly well-to-do, and they have close personal friends who, I feel sure, would pay a good price to see the girls get home again unharmed."
"You're putty young to be runnin' a game like this," came from Hamp
Gouch.
"Maybe, but I know just what I am doing."
They walked into the living room, and Lew Flapp made an inspection of the pantry and then of Captain Starr's private apartment. As it happened, the captain used liquor, and several bottles were brought out, much to the satisfaction of the horse thieves.
"This makes me feel more like talking," said Hamp Gouch, after swallowing a goodly portion of the stuff.
"Perhaps you had better give us the whole game straight from start to now," said Pick Loring. "Then we can make up our minds just what we can do."
Sitting down, Dan Baxter told as much of himself and Lew Flapp as he deemed necessary, and told about the trip on the houseboat which the Rovers, Stanhopes, and the Lanings had been taking. Then he told how Dora and Nellie had been abducted and how the voyage down the Ohio had been started in the mist and the darkness.
"You're a putty bold pair for your years," said Pick Loring. "Hang me if I don't admire you!" And he smiled in his coarse way.
"Of course you can see the possibilities in this," went on Dan Baxter. "Supposing we can make the Stanhopes and Lanings and Rovers pay over fifty or sixty thousand dollars for the return of the girls. That means a nice sum for each of us."