“I’m sure,” the rancher went on, “you said something to me about a scamp who was forever trying to do you both an ill turn up around home; and unless I’m mistaken, you also told me he was the only son of a wealthy but foolish widow, who supplied him with all the money he asked for. The first name was Percy, that I’d swear; and the last one began with the letters C-a-r, now didn’t it, boys?”
“Carberry, that’s it, uncle,” burst out Andy.
“But what makes you ask that, sir?” demanded Frank, looking curiously at what seemed to be a scrap of paper in the fingers of the gentleman.
“This is what made me mention it; it is apparently a small part of a letter that some one at this place must have received not a great while back, and which he thought best to destroy; but one of the fragments lodged in a bush; and when my foreman chanced to notice it, and idly picked it up, he was interested in the few words he could make out, so he brought it to me. Here, take a look for yourselves, boys, and tell me what you think.”
On the piece of paper with the ragged edges there could only be made out some dozen or two words; a portion of these being incomplete, though easily guessed.
These ran irregularly, and might be set down in something like the following order: “Fifty dolla—good job of it—anyway you like—burn it to cinde—hear how it—ld friend, Percy Car——”
Andy nearly had a fit when he read this; Frank, on his part, felt the blood boil within him, though better able to conceal the state of his feelings, or rather control his temper, than his impulsive cousin.
“Why, just think of that, would you?” exclaimed Andy, “not satisfied with doing everything in his power to injure the Bird Boys while they were up there, this contemptible ingrate actually has the nerve to write to some fellow who, he happened to know, was working on or near this ranch, and sent him fifty dollars, which was to pay him for doing something to make all our journey down here useless—he even put it in his head to burn our aeroplane, and all that! Oh! he is certainly the meanest fellow that ever came down the pike. I almost wish we’d left him up there on the summit of Old Thunder-Top, Frank, to get what he deserved.”
“Oh! I wouldn’t say that, Andy,” remarked his cousin, “it’s a rough deal, I know, but when we could save those fellows it was our duty to do it, no matter whether they were of any use in the world or not. You never can tell how things are going to turn out.”
“You nearly always can when Percy Carberry has got to do with it,” grumbled Andy.