Frank Merriwell's Triumph: or, The Disappearance of Felicia

“A good thing,” laughed Spotted Dan. “Well, gents, you counts me in on that good thing. You plays no game like this on me, none at all!”

Dick stirred and opened his eyes.

“He is all right,” said Mat.

The boy looked up at the two ruffians near him and then struggled to his elbow, his black eyes full of defiance.

“Give me a fair show and I’ll try it again!” he weakly exclaimed. “If I’d a fair show then I wouldn’t be here now. I was weaponless. You were three to one against me, and still you had to use a weapon to put me down and out.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” again roared Spotted Dan. “These yere Merriwells sure is fighters.”

Mat turned on him hotly.

“I reckon you found that out in Prescott the first time you met Frank Merriwell,” he said.

Dan suddenly stopped laughing and scowled blackly.

“Don’t git so personal!” he cried. “Mebbe I don’t like it any!”

Dick lifted his hand to his head and saw blood on his fingers when he looked at them. Then from his pocket he took a handkerchief, which he knotted about his head.

“Better put your bird back into the cage,” advised Dan. “Ef yer don’t, mebbe he flutters some more. When he flutters he is dangerous.”

“That’s right,” nodded Dillon, laying hold of Dick. “We will chuck him back there in a hurry.”

“Take your hands off me, you brute!” panted the boy. “I will go back of my own accord. Let me alone.”

Dillon dragged him to his feet, but, with a wrench, he suddenly tore free. If the ruffians expected him to resume the effort, they soon found he had no such intention, for, with a remarkably steady step, he walked across the floor to the open door of his prison room.

In the doorway he turned and faced them, the handkerchief about his head already showing a crimson stain on one side. His dark eyes flashed with unutterable scorn and contempt.

“I know you all three!” he exclaimed. “Wait till my brother finds out about this business. The whole Southwest won’t be large enough to hide you in safety.”

Then he disappeared into the room, scornfully closing the door behind him.

“Gents,” said Spotted Dan, “for real, genuine sand, give me a kid like that!”

Then the bar was once more slipped into its socket, and the door was made secure. With throbbing head and fiery pulse, Dick lay on the bunk in that back room as the remainder of the night slipped away.

With the coming of another day he heard the faint hoofbeats of a horse outside, and knew some one had ridden up. Then the muttering of voices in the next room came to him, and his curiosity, in spite of his injury, caused him to again slip to the door and listen at the crack beneath it.

He heard the voice of a strange man saying:

“I am to take the letter back myself. The youngster must be forced to write it. Leave it to me; I will make him do it.”

“Partner,” said the hoarse voice of Spotted Dan, “I opines you takes a mighty big contract when you tries to force that kid inter doing anything of the sort.”

“Leave it ter me,” urged the stranger. “Let me in there, and I will turn the trick.”

A few minutes later Dick hastily got away from the door and pretended to be sleeping on the bunk, his ears telling him the bar was being removed. A flood of light shone in, for there was no window to that dark room to admit daylight. The four men entered, one of them bringing a lighted lamp in his hand.

The boy pretended to awaken and then sat up. He saw that the newcomer had a mask over his face, making it plain he feared recognition by the captive.

“Yere,” said Spotted Dan, “is a gent what wants ter see you some, my young gamecock. He has a right important piece of business to transact with yer, and I reckons it pays yer ter do as he tells yer.”

The masked man came and stood looking at the boy.

“Kid,” he said, in what seemed to be an assumed manner of fierceness, “you’ve got to write a letter to your brother, and you will write it just as I tells yer. Understand that? If you refuse, we will stop bothering with you any by wringing your neck and throwing you out for buzzard bait. We can’t afford to waste time fooling, and we mean business. Time is mighty important to us.”

“What do you want me to write?” asked Dick.

“We wants you to write a letter telling your brother that you are in the hands of men who proposes to carve you up piecemeal unless he makes terms with a certain gent who wants to deal with him for some of his property. No need to mention this gent’s name, mind that. Don’t put it into the letter. You tells your brother nothing whatever about us save that we has you all tight and fast. But you tells him that, onless he comes to terms immediate, we sends him to-morrow one of your thumbs. In case he delays a while longer, we sends him t’other thumb. Then, if he remains foolish and won’t deal any, we kindly sends him your right ear. If that don’t bring him around a whole lot sudden, we presents him with your left ear. Arter that we gits tired when we waits twenty-four hours, and we shoots you full of lead and lets it go at that. Mat, pull over that yere box right close to the kid’s bunk, where he can sit all comfortable-like and write on it.”

A box was dragged out of a corner and placed before young Merriwell, who sat on the edge of the bunk. Then a sheet of paper was produced and spread in front of the lad, while the stub of a lead pencil was thrust into his fingers.

“Now write,” savagely ordered the masked man – “write just what I tells yer to a minute ago!”

Dick hesitated, but seemed to succumb. Through his head a wild scheme had flashed. It bewildered him for a moment, but quickly his mind cleared and he began to write. He did so, however, with the utmost slowness, as if the task was a difficult and painful one. Spotted Dan was surprised to see the boy give in so quickly. He had fancied Dick would have obstinately refused until compelled to obey.

“Don’t put in a thing but just what I tells yer to,” commanded the masked man. “If yer does, youngster, you has ter write another letter, for we won’t deliver this one any at all. If you wants to get free, you has good sense and obeys all peaceful-like.”

“All right,” muttered Dick, as he slowly labored over the beginning of the message to Frank.

“Why, seems ter me this yer boy’s eddication has been a heap neglected,” said Dillon. “He finds it a whole lot hard to write.”

The masked man resumed his position where he could read what was being written. Somehow it didn’t seem to please him, for of a sudden he seized the sheet of paper and tore it up.

“Why for do you ramble around that yere way?” he demanded. “You puts it down plain and brief, with no preliminaries. Understand that?”

Then he produced another sheet of paper and laid it upon the box. Immediately Dick flung down the pen and lay back on the bunk.

“You go to Halifax!” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing. “I will write it just as I want to, or I won’t write it at all.”

The man instantly whipped out a long, wicked-looking knife.

“Then I slits your oozle!” he snarled.

“Slit away!” defiantly retorted the boy.

Spotted Dan broke into a hoarse laughter.

“What did I tell yer!” he cried. “I certain knowed how it would be.”

The masked man seized Dick and held the knife menacingly before his eyes.

“Will you do as I tell you?” he hissed.

“I will do as I choose,” retorted the nervy lad. “I don’t propose to write anything save what you order, but I will write it in my own way. If I can’t, then I won’t write at all.”

The man hesitated, then straightened up.

“Well, you sure has sand, or you’re the biggest fool for a kid I ever saw,” he declared. “Go ahead and write her out, and then I’ll examine her and see that she’s all right.”

So once more Dick took the pencil and began to write. He preserved the same deliberate slowness in constructing the early portion of the missive, but finally began to write faster and faster, and finished it with a rush, signing his name.

“Well, the kid’s eddication seems to be all right, arter all,” observed Mat, as he admiringly watched the boy speedily scribble the last sentence. “Mebbe he is out of practice some, to begin with, and so he writes slow till he gits his hand in.”

The masked man took the letter and carefully read it over.

“Why were you so particular to say, ‘No house shelters me?’” he asked. “That yere is dead crooked. Is you trying to fool your brother up some?”

Dick actually laughed.

“I put that in just to help you out, gentlemen,” he declared. “You have been so very kind to me I should hate to see anything happen to you.”

The masked man wondered vaguely if the boy was mocking them, but decided almost immediately that he had really frightened Dick to such an extent that the young captive had put those words in to show his willingness to hold to the demands made upon him.

“Well, this will do,” nodded the wearer of the mask, folding the paper and thrusting it into his pocket. “Now, pards, just keep the boy all ca’m and quiet, and mebbe his brother comes to his senses and settles the deal, arter which we evaporates and leaves them to meet up with each other and rejoice.”

Then he strode out of the room, and his three companions followed, closing the door and leaving Dick once more to gloom and solitude.

CHAPTER XXVII.

COMPLETE TRIUMPH

Frank found the letter thrust under the door of his room at the hotel in Prescott. He was reading it over and over when Brad Buckhart, wearing a long, doleful face, came into the room.

“You don’t find no trace whatever of my pard, do you, Frank?” he asked.

“I have a letter from him here,” said Frank.

“What?” shouted the Texan, electrified by Merry’s words. “A letter from him?”

“Yes.”

“Why should he write a letter? Why didn’t he come himself, instead of doing that?”

“Well, from what he says in the letter, I fancy it is impossible for him to come,” said Merry. “Here, Buckhart, read it and see what you make of it.”

He handed the missive to Brad, who read it through, his excitement growing every moment. This is what the Texan read:

“Dear Frank: I now am held fast in hands that care little for my life. No house shelters me. I am not near Prescott. If you search, you will find wind and nothing more. Have had a hot mill with my captors, but to no use whatever. S.tay here I must. Brad will worry, so don’t fail to show him this.

“The men who have me swear to mutilate and finally kill me unless you come to terms immediately. You are to settle with the man who has demanded from you your mines and has threatened you with arrest for murder. As soon as you make terms with him, I am to be set free. If you refuse to make terms, this man swears to chop me up by inches. To-morrow you will receive one of my thumbs; next day the other thumb. Then, if you still delay, an ear will follow, and its mate will be delivered to you twenty-four hours later. If you remain obstinate, I shall be killed.

“Your brother,Dick.”

“Great horn spoon!” shouted Buckhart, flourishing the missive in the air. “Great jumping tarantulas! This certain is a whole lot tough! Why, Frank, what are you going to do about it? You’ve got to rescue him, or else give in to old Morgan, for they will chop him up if you don’t.”

“How am I going to rescue him,” said Merry, “when I don’t know where to find him?”

Brad now stood quite still, with his hands on his hips, a look of perplexity and distress on his face.

“That’s so, Frank,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I am afraid they’ve got you.”

“Do you notice anything peculiar about that letter?” questioned Merry.

“Peculiar? Why, I dunno. Somehow it don’t sound just like Dick, though I’ll swear it’s his writing. I know his writing.”

“Yes, I am certain it is his writing; still, the first part of it sounds peculiar. I suppose that’s because he was ordered to write certain things and had to take them down from dictation. But look here, Brad,” Merry continued, taking the letter from the Texan’s hand. “Notice that word, ‘sta.y.’ Why do you suppose he dropped a period into the midst of it?”

“Accident,” said Brad. “Must have been.”

Frank shook his head.

“Somehow I don’t think so,” he declared. “Somehow there seems to me there is a hidden meaning in this letter. I am half inclined to believe it is a cipher letter.”

“Gee whilikins!” cried the Texan. “Mebbe that’s so!”

Together they puzzled over it a long time, and the Texan grew more and more excited. Finally he shouted:

“Let me have it, Frank – let me have it! That’s why he wanted you to show it to me. See, he says for you to show it to me. He opined I’d tumble to the cipher and read it all right.”

The boy’s hands were shaking as he held the letter. From head to feet he quivered with the excitement he could not control.

“Steady, Buckhart,” said Merry, laying a calming hand on his shoulder. “Then you believe there is a cipher in it, do you?”

“Sure as shooting! I know there is! You hear me shout! Once on a time, at Fardale, he studied out right before me a cipher letter that was written this same way by one of his enemies. He reckoned I would remember that. He reckoned I would tumble and read the cipher in this letter.”

Although Frank must have been excited also, he still restrained himself.

“If that’s the case,” he said, “you should be able to read this with ease. Go ahead and do so.”

“Gimme a pencil,” panted the Texan.

Frank did so, and then Brad began by underscoring the first word of the letter after Frank’s name, following with the second word, having skipped one, then he skipped two, and underscored the next word. Then skipped three, underscoring the next, and so on through the greater part of the first paragraph. When this was finished, the words underscored read as follows:

“I am in little house near windmill sta.y.”

“There she is!” Brad almost yelled, waving it wildly around his head. “That’s the message. I followed her up further, but it ends right there. After that he just writes what they tell him to.”

“‘I am in little house near windmill sta.y,’” read Frank, having taken the paper from the Texan’s hand. “Are you certain that ‘sta.y’ comes into it?”

“Well, part of her comes into it,” averred Brad. “She comes into it up to the period, at least. I reckons that’s why the period comes in there. ‘Sta.’ – what does that stand for, Frank?”

“Station,” said Merry at once. “He has written that he is in a little house near Windmill Station. That’s it, Brad, my boy. We know where to find him at last, thanks to you.”

“No, Frank; thanks to that fine head of his. What are we going to do?”

Frank walked over to a corner of the room and picked up a Winchester rifle, which he examined, a resolute grimness on his handsome face.

“We’re going to find that little house near Windmill Station,” he said, in a calm, low voice. “And when we find it, Buckhart, there will be something doing.”

Another night had fallen when a party of at least a dozen persons, all armed and ready for anything that might take place, surrounded and crept up to the little house where Dick was held a prisoner near Windmill Station. Frank led this party, and when the house was thoroughly surrounded, he advanced without hesitation to the door, Buckhart at his side, carrying in his hand an axe.

“Give me the axe!” whispered Merry, as he extended his rifle to Brad.

A moment later a crashing blow fell on the heavy door. When of a sudden Frank swung the axe and made blow after blow at the door, it shook, and cracked, and splintered before the attack upon it.

“Lay on! lay on!” urged Cap’n Wiley, who was close at hand and ready for the encounter. “Knock the everlasting jimblistered stuffing out of her!”

Within the hut there was no small commotion.

Dick had been waiting. He heard the first blow, and it brought him to his feet with a bound. He heard the ruffianly guards in the outer room uttering excited exclamations. Then he shouted:

“Beat it down, Frank – beat it down! Here I am!”

He could not be sure his words were heard above the sounds of the assault on the door, but at this moment, with a great splintering crash, the door fell. Then came shouting, and shots, and sounds of a struggle. It was over quickly, and Dick was waiting when the door of his prison room was flung wide and his brother sprang in.

“Hello, Frank!” he cried laughingly. “You’re on time. They haven’t begun chopping me up yet.”

“Where’s my pard?” shouted Buckhart, as he came tearing into the room. “Here he is!” he whooped joyously, clasping Dick in his arms. “Say, pard, you’re a dandy! But I don’t believe I’d tumbled to it that there was a cipher message in that letter if Frank hadn’t suspected such a thing.”

At this moment Cap’n Wiley appeared at the door.

“Mate Merriwell,” he said, “there’s a fine gent out here who has a shattered knee and says he’s bleeding to death. Perhaps you had better take a look at him.”

Frank turned back, followed by Dick and Brad. In the outer room both Mat and Dillon were prisoners in the hands of Merriwell’s comrades, one of them having a bullet in his shoulder. But on the floor lay another man, who had been found there with them, having arrived a short time before the appearance of the rescuers. It was Macklyn Morgan, and his knee, as Wiley had declared, was shattered by a bullet.

“I am dying, Merriwell!” said Morgan, his face ghastly pale. “You have triumphed at last. I will bother you no more.”

Frank quickly knelt and ripped open the man’s trousers leg with a keen knife. Then he called sharply for a rope, which he tied loosely about Morgan’s leg above the knee, thrusting through a loop in it a strong stick supplied him by Wiley. With this stick he twisted the rope until it cut into the flesh and stopped the profuse bleeding.

“Now, Morgan,” said Merry, “we will do our best to save your life by getting you to the nearest doctor in short order.”

“Why should you do that?” whispered the money king wonderingly.

“I don’t care to see even my worst enemy die in such a manner,” was the answer.

Macklyn Morgan did not die, although he must have done so but for the prompt action of Frank at that critical moment. He lost his leg, however, for it was found necessary to amputate the limb at the knee.

It was some days after this operation that Morgan called for Frank, begging his attendant to bring Merry to him. When Merry stood beside the cot on which the wretched man lay, Morgan looked up and said:

“I have been thinking this thing over, Mr. Merriwell, and the more I think about it the greater grows my astonishment at your action. The doctor has told me that you saved my life. I can’t do much to even up for that; but from this time on, Frank Merriwell, I shall never lift a hand against you.”

THE END