“Right here,” answered the leader of the five men with a chuckle. “We’re all officers. That’s Nick Wilson, a deputy sheriff,” he added, indicating the big man who had arrived in the car with two others. “I’m a court-house constable and these others are special deputies we just swore in to help capture the bank robbers.”
“Bank robbers?” exclaimed Mr. Campbell. “Were Martin, Elkton and Shadd robbers?”
“They were, and desperate ones, too, only those aren’t their names,” said Deputy Sheriff Wilson. “I guess they go by any names that suit ’em, but one of ’em is Cassidy, and the other two are Burke and Armstrong. They robbed the Frenchtown bank of over fifty thousand dollars last week, and they have been traced to this locality.
“Early this morning we got word that three men, answering the description of the bank robbers, were out here in this shack. I rounded up all the men I could find. Dodge, here, got a little ahead of me,” said the deputy sheriff with a grin, “but as soon as I saw the two boys I knew we were barking up the wrong tree. And so the robbers took your car and got away; did they?”
“It looks so,” admitted Mr. Campbell ruefully.
“Too bad,” said Nick Wilson. “If you could only have held those fellows you’d have been in the reward of ten thousand dollars.”
Rick and Chot gasped at this.
“No use thinking about that now,” said Mr. Campbell philosophically. “I’ll be satisfied if I can get my car back, and the stuff in it—including the baggage of these boys. I’m on my way to San Francisco, and Rick and Chot—not to forget Ruddy—are going out to their Uncle Tod.”
“He isn’t my uncle,” said Chot.
“Well, it’s all the same,” explained Mr. Campbell with a smile. And then, briefly, he told the officers of how they were caught in the storm at the broken bridge, and how they had happened to stop at the lonely cabin.