"I think we will be safe in making Captain Grady a prisoner," replied Paul slowly.
"Yes, make him a prisoner by all means," put in Chet. "He is a villain if ever there was one. If we can't prove it I think my Uncle Barnaby can."
At the reference to Barnaby Winthrop Captain Grady grew pale. It was evident that his sins were at last finding him out.
It did not take Jack Blowfen long to act upon Paul's suggestion. He disarmed the captain and made him march into the house, where he bound the fellow in very much the same manner as Dottery had bound Jeff Jones.
While he was doing so Paul showed the letters taken from the prisoner to Caleb Dottery. Chet, while a second reading was going on, commenced to ransack the house.
The captain had moved but a few things into the ranch home—a couple of chairs, a table, a bed, and an old hair trunk. The trunk Chet opened without ceremony.
More letters were found there—documents which told only too plainly what manner of man the captain was. Chet smiled to himself to think how foolish the rascal had been not to have destroyed the epistles.
"But the greatest of villains occasionally over-reach themselves," he said to Paul. "I fancy this is proof enough to show what an awfully bad man Captain Grady is."
"You are right, Chet," said Dottery, after a careful examination. "He is a hoss thief as great as was old Sol Davids, and he is trying to rob yer uncle out of a mine claim as well."
"Not only that, but as Jeff Jones said, he is with the crowd who holds my uncle a prisoner, sir. That, to me is the worst part of it."