"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 d.i.c.k 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.
d.i.c.k 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 a.s.sault 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 d.i.c.k was waiting when the door of his prison room was flung wide and his brother sprang in.
"h.e.l.lo, 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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.