"We've been tricked!" declared Frank hotly. "Mr. Hopkins said he had been sent to look after us and that this train would take us right through to Montana."
"And then he locked the door on you so you wouldn't go around making inquiries until it was too late," added the conductor. "Your friend certainly put one over on you. But I'm afraid we can't do much for you now. We're quite a distance out of Chicago, and this train doesn't stop for another hour yet."
"Another hour!"
"That's the best we can do."
"Well," said Frank, disgusted, "I guess we'll just have to wait and get off at the first stop, and then take the next train back to Chicago. This will hold us up another day on our trip."
"Sorry," said the conductor sympathetically. "Of course it isn't our fault. We couldn't know you were supposed to be going West."
"No, of course not. It was Hopkins. He planned the whole thing from the start. Oh, well!" Frank shrugged. "We might as well wait."
He and Joe went back into the compartment and sat down again. This unexpected development left them silent and discouraged. Too late now, they saw that the astute Hopkins had deliberately sought to prevent them from joining their father in Montana. He had worked the trick very neatly, and it might easily have happened that the boys would not have discovered the deception until they reached Indianapolis had it not been for the chance remark of the porter. For that, at least, they were thankful.
"Dad's enemies mustn't be very anxious to have us reach Montana, if they'll go to these lengths to sidetrack us," said Joe, at last.
"We'll get there if we have to walk," Frank replied grimly.