“Yes, you said something that sounded like robbed, and we’ve been trying to figure out what it meant ever since,” added Monkey Stallings, who was really a late addition to the troop, though making his way up the ladder by leaps and bounds, being a lad eager to learn all the things of which a first-class scout must have a knowledge in order to obtain his badge.
“Well,” began Gusty with a whimsical grin, “it’s just this way. I’ve been sent up here several times twice a month to carry the money used to pay the hundred Italians and other foreigners working in our granite quarries. I guess somebody must have spotted me this time. Two men, who looked like tramps but who may have been worse than that, lay in wait for me just below here. They had that sapling fixed so that it crossed the road, and I couldn’t have got past even if I tried.”
“Gee! what d’ye think of that! And right here within twenty miles of Oakvale, too?” ejaculated Billy, his face expressing the most intense interest, “but excuse my interrupting you, Gusty. Please go on. You’ve got me chained fast. Stopped you on the road did they, and robbed you of the pay money?”
“When I managed to pull up, I was right on the tree they had thrown across the road,” continued the other. “At first the tall man pretended he was a country constable, meaning to arrest me because I was speeding, though of course, it was silly to think of such a thing away up here in the mountains. Then the other fellow showed up, and they let me know that they’d been waiting for me in order to steal the money I carried. I tried to jump into the runabout again to get hold of the gun dad makes me carry, but they battered me on the head, and nearly did me as you can see. In the end they lowered me to that ledge, so that I couldn’t get anywhere and give the alarm. Oh! I’ve been having the time of my life, let me tell you! But if they think they’re going to get away with this job so easy, they’re barking up the wrong tree. Now I’m out of that hole, I mean to get after them lickety-split.”
“How much of a start have they got?” asked Hugh soberly.
“Really I couldn’t tell you,” came the reply. “You see, that short rascal snatched my gold watch before they lowered me down the precipice. It seemed to me as if I must have been there for hours.”
“It was just a little more than an hour and a half ago that you left the tavern where we were waiting to be called to dinner,” Hugh told him. Gus expressed the greatest surprise, for he had never known time to drag so before.
“But let’s talk of what can be done to overtake those men and get back all they took from me,” he suggested doggedly.
“One of us might turn around and make a run for home to get the police on the track,” ventured Billy, “though it would be taking big chances to start me over that course, because I’m a bum rider so far, and apt to take a header if I get a little rattled.”
“How far away are the quarries you were making for, Gus?” asked Hugh.