LOST IN THE BLIZZARD
“I’ve got nothing against the lads,” explained the sheriff, sitting sideways on the front seat after bringing the horses down to a more quiet pace, and speaking so the girls on the back seat could hear him. “But some things I have heard make me suspicious.”
“They seem to have had something to do with a boy called ‘the Dummy’—he’s been to their house, you know. You told me so yourself, Parker.”
Mildred flashed Lettie a sharp glance and the red-haired girl had the grace to blush. So it had been her chattering to her father of what the Speedwell boys had told them about the island, and Dummy, that had set the sheriff to looking up Dan and Billy.
“This dummy seems to be the important link in our case against Steinforth and his co-operators. Most of the gang were arrested months ago by the Federal officers. But the engraving plates they worked from and a lot of finished notes, as well as a coiner’s outfit, were cached by the outlaws before their arrest.”
“Now, this Biggin, and the dummy, who is his nephew——”
“Oh! is he really dumb?” cried Lettie, curiously.
“No. Dreadfully tongue-tied, I believe. A good person to trust a secret to, for he couldn’t tell it easily,” and the sheriff laughed.
“But is the poor boy really a criminal?” asked Mildred, faintly.
“Why—as to that——No! I fancy he is attached to Biggin. And Biggin was never really a member of Steinforth’s gang. Biggin drinks—that’s his failing. He used to go off into the woods on lonesome sprees. That’s how he fell in with the counterfeiting gang, he told me.