“What, is that their little dodge?” he exclaimed. “Well, they sure have gone and barked up the wrong tree, that time. Why, Amos hasn’t got a relative in the wide world that he knows about, you told me. It’s your good dad that’s going to send him to school, and give him the chance to study for being a doctor later on. What silly notion possessed them to ever lug him off? That Hackett must be going into his dotage, I just guess.”
“Hold on, Dolph, perhaps not, when you look into their nice little game a bit further. Amos hasn’t any cash, himself, but he’s got a friend who thinks a heap of him, and whose daddy might put up ransom money. That friend is myself, you know?”
“I see,” muttered Dolph, a little uneasily, “not so dull a game after all.”
“They may have even a better card up their sleeve,” continued Teddy, “I notice that when they left here those men took no pains to cover up their tracks. Fact is, it looks to me as they might be just inviting us to follow. That would indicate just one thing—that Amos was carried off to hold him as a bait to trap somebody else—you and me. Once they had the lot of us, you see they could send Amos to make terms for our surrender.”
“Whew! you give me a bad feeling, Teddy; but honest now, it does sound reasonable like. I wouldn’t put it past that big Gabe Hackett. I remember now, how he kept looking at me, queerlike, out of the comer of his eye. But this is a desperate affair. Do you think they’d dare try such a job? If caught it would mean a long jail sentence.”
“That’s so, but Hackett is getting more reckless about consequences, right along. Like enough he figures on skipping across to Canada once he gets hold of a good bunch of the long green. You can be sure, Dolph, this is a trap laid for us.”
“Then we’d be silly to fall into the same, I take it,” declared the other.
“We certainly won’t, if we know it,” declared Teddy. “We’ll take up the trail, and see if we can get our chum out of their hands; but let us never forget that we ’re up against a pair of prime woodsmen, who know pretty much all the tricks of the trade. And while we follow the trail we must arrange it so they can’t lay hands on both of us. You’re the one they want most, I take it, Dolph. I rather think Gabe would hesitate a little to hold me, because he knows what my dad can be, once he’s roused up. It’s getting dark, and we’ll have to use the lantern. So while I go ahead, to follow the trail, do you hang back, just so far, with your scatter gun ready to pepper the rascals, if they show up.”
“All right,” said Dolph, seriously, “I want to say right now that I think your little plan’s a good one. The sooner we start the better. Amos, poor fellow, will be thinking we mean to desert him. Lead on, Teddy, and tell me just how far you want me to fall back.”
Now, in all probability Dolph had never fired a shot at a human being in all his young life. The idea was more or less abhorrent to him; it did not appeal to him at all. But he came of soldier stock. Some of his people had borne an illustrious part in all the wars of the country from the time of the Revolution down to the unpleasantness with Spain, in which his father had served as a colonel.