"Because I thought it would bring you, and I didn't think of anything else that would fetch you this way."
"Well, you overreached yourself. Instead of making us your prisoners, we have turned the tables on you; and we're going to get you away from here before the rest of your gang show up."
"They'll not show up," declared Brady, "and I didn't get you and your friends here to make any trouble for you."
It was a queer condition of affairs—so queer, in fact, that Matt would not take any stock in it.
"What did you bring us here for?" he asked incredulously.
"To help my girl," replied Brady, in a voice that seemed perfectly sincere. "She has helped you a good many times, King, and I supposed you would be willing to do something for her."
"I would do anything for Miss Brady, but I don't think that you, even though you are her father, have her best interests at heart. When you were captured, over in Michigan, you swore you would get even with your daughter, just as you would with me."
"A few days have made a different man of me, King. I got a letter while I was in prison, telling how the girl had been spirited away from the home of her friends, in Chicago. I know who did that, and I know why it was done. Helen needs help—she must have it soon—and if you won't come with me and help me with the Hawk, there's no telling what will happen to the girl. It was to do what I could for her that I escaped from the 'pen,' that I have been hiding and starving in that old quarry, and that I wrote that letter and got you here. Good heavens, boys, do you think I'd have taken all these chances unless there was the biggest kind of a demand on me?"
Brady was terribly in earnest, but he was so shifty and full of tricks that Matt could not have any confidence in him.
"Your change of heart is too sudden to be sincere," said he. "You've played fast and loose with me ever since I first met you, Brady."