Then he took the empty grain sack and stuffed it with the clothes, and a large portion of the provisions. He appropriated all the stamps he could find, and pushed the tin boxes aside.
Having completed his arrangements he walked over to the closet and opened the door. Then he sat down on a log facing the boys with his gun across his knee.
"I think I have you chaps pretty tight," he said, wrinkling his face into an ugly smile. "I have a very particular engagement about twenty miles from here, and it was my first intention to start away this morning. But seein' as the rain is still coming down I have changed my mind and will give you the pleasure of my company fur a few hours longer.
"The fact is I've taken quite a fancy to you chaps—quite a decided fancy. There's one young gentleman in your party I'm 'specially anxious to see. I've had a cherished memento of him fur the last ten days, and it's quite a load on my mind because I haven't given him anything in return. It keeps me from sleepin' sound at nights."
Here Mr. Moxley threw out his right leg, and turned the trousers up a few inches, revealing half a dozen red scars on his ankle.
"That's the memento I speak of," he said. "It's a purty one, isn't it?"
There was a breathless pause. The boys turned pale before the ferocious glance of the scoundrel. The mystery was clear as daylight now.
Their captor was none other than Bug Batters's desperate companion. From sheer love of revenge he must have been tracking the Jolly Rovers ever since that momentous night nearly two weeks previous.
Moxley gloated over the consternation and the dread that were depicted on the faces of his prisoners. He did not speak for a moment, but gazed at the boys with a cruel smile that was more terrible than a manifestation of anger.
"Well," he said finally, "I reckon you know who I am by this time. I'll give you just five minutes to point out the lad who peppered me with salt. If you're sensible chaps you'll do it without hesitation. If you try to make a fool out of me I'll serve you all the same way I intend to serve him. I'm a fair minded man, and don't want to punish the innocent with the guilty if I kin help it."