“Let’s swing him from a limb,” proposed a stout chap, who was occasionally losing a peanut from a hole in the bottom of the well stuffed side pocket of his coat. “Many a time and oft has he boasted of what he has done to cattle rustlers like us.”
“My deduction is——” began a little chap; but instantly some one gave him a poke in the ribs, which cut him short.
“We’ll bear him to our retreat amid the mountains,” proposed the leader, “and there we can decide what fate shall be meted out to him. Release him from the tree, but blindfold his eyes, in order that he may not observe the trail we follow.”
These instructions were carried out, although they took care to leave Grant’s hands pinioned behind his back. A thickly folded handkerchief was placed over his eyes and securely tied at the back of his head. Barely was this done when the three redskins and the renegade came sneaking back from the shadows of the woods and joined the self-styled cattle rustlers. Threatening Grant if he made an outcry, they hurried him forth from the woods and away toward the twinkling lights of the distant village. Down the Barville road they went, approaching the dark and silent academy and the gymnasium. Among themselves at intervals they muttered fierce threats of vengeance for the death of the mythical “Tanglefoot Bill.”
Once or twice a sound like a suppressed, smothered giggle came from behind the mask of the fat fellow, causing one of his companions to give him a vigorous punch and hiss into his ear an order to “dry up.”
Within the gymnasium a shaded light glowed dimly. Beneath this light they gathered, with the unresisting and still blindfolded captive in their midst.
“What shall we do with him, comrades?” questioned the leader.
“String him up to a rafter,” urged one of his followers.
“Show him no mercy,” advised another.
“Make short work of him,” growled still another.