“He’s sound asleep,” was the reply.
“It makes no difference if he did,” suggested Buck. “He has been wise to the game since the first day.”
“Oh, all right, then,” was Alex’s answer. “What does the kid think about your program? Is he enjoying this trip on the Rio Grande? He’s in no shape, with his broken leg, to take much comfort.”
“He thinks he’s lucky to be alive, after the treatment given him up the river,” Buck said. “You see, he got beaten up before they got the notion of holding him for ransom.”
“I don’t understand,” interposed Jule. “If the old miser wanted him murdered, he must have gotten into communication with the robbers, and offered them a large sum to do the job!”
“That’s just the point!” answered Buck. “That’s what we want to find out! That’s just what we are taking this trip for—to give the brutes a good chance to show their hands. Ordinarily, it would be enough to frustrate the old miser and the robbers, but someone must be punished for this mix-up, and we want to get the right ones.”
“And so the robbers are double-crossing the miser?” asked Alex. “They are going to play the blackmail game? Well, if he bargained with them to do murder, they can get about all he has!”
Alex, cutting his talk short, and pointing to a rim of trees standing not far away. Through the slanting rain a low clicking sound, the clicking of metal on metal.
“What’s doing over there?” the lad asked. “Sounds like a machine shop.”
All listened intently for a time. The sound had ceased now, and there was only the patter of the falling rain.