"Well, if we appeal to Washington and ask our government to demand Mr. Hampton's release, there certainly will be trouble. And that, I believe, is what the enemy counts on us to do. If they really were after a ransom, and had no other object in view, it is likely they would not have asked for so big a sum, and also would not have given us two whole weeks in which to carry out their demands. No, I am convinced they expect us to go to Washington and make trouble. Therefore, that is the one thing we must try to avoid doing."
"But, look here, Mr. Temple," said Jack, impulsively and with just the slightest quiver in his voice, "he's my father."
"Yes, I know, Jack," Mr. Temple said in a sympathetic tone, "and I know what you're thinking of. You're thinking your father is a prisoner and ill-treated. And you're saying to yourself that while we hold back here from appealing to the government, something dreadful may happen to him. Isn't that so?"
Jack gulped unashamedly, and turned his head away. "Something like that," he said, in a muffled voice.
The older man dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry too much, my boy," he said. "We may appeal to Washington, and let the consequences go hang, if that is the only way to bring back your father. But we don't want to act too hastily. Let's turn in now and get a good night's sleep. Then in the morning we'll decide on something definite."
It had been a long discussion, and Bob and Frank were content to do as Mr. Temple proposed. Jack, perforce, agreed, although the strain of the last few days, which he had carried alone, was beginning to tell on him and he yearned for instant action. He showed the others to their rooms, Bob and Mr. Temple sharing Mr. Hampton's room, and Frank bunking in with Jack himself.
After Frank had undressed and tumbled into bed, so dog-tired, as he said, that he could barely keep his eyes open to see the way to his pillow, Jack went out to stand in the starlight on the porch. After leaning against a pillar some minutes, during which his active brain kept milling endlessly over the details of the past few days, he had an impulse to go over to the radiophone station and talk to the guard, an ex-cowboy, on duty there since the attack by three Mexicans at the time this story opened.
Hands in his pockets, head bowed in thought, he moved across the hard packed sand, his feet making practically no sound.