"I don't see why you fellows can't turn over a new leaf," went on Dick earnestly.
"Oh, don't preach, Dick Rover," answered Dan Baxter. "You make me sick when you do that."
"I suppose you find this a good hiding place."
"It has been--up to now," said Arnold Baxter. "But since you have discovered us--" he did not finish.
"We'll make him pay for it," said Dan Baxter. "I've been waiting to square accounts for a long time."
"How did you escape from that island, Dan?" asked Dick curiously.
"A ship came along about a week after you left it."
"I see. And did you come right through to here?"
"That is my business, Dick Rover. But I came to help my father, I don't mind telling you that."
"Then you knew he had escaped from prison?"
"From the hospital, yes."
"And did you know he had robbed our house?"
"He took what belonged to him, Dick Rover. Your folks robbed him of that mine in the West."
"Well, I won't argue the point, Dan Baxter." Dick got up and moved toward the door. "I think I'll go."
"Will you!" cried both of the Baxters, in a breath, and seizing him they forced him back into the corner.
"Let us make him a prisoner," went on Dan Baxter, and this was speedily done by aid of a rope which the elder Baxter brought forth. Then Dick was thrown into a closet of an inner apartment and the door was locked upon him.
CHAPTER XXIX
TRUE HEROISM
"Well, one thing is certain, I am much worse off now than I was when in the hands of Lew Flapp's crowd," thought Dick dismally, after trying in vain to break the bonds that bound him.
The closet in which he was a prisoner was so small that he could scarcely turn himself. The door was a thick one, so to break it down was out of the question.
"Stop your row in there!" called out Dan Baxter presently. "If you don't, I'll give you something you won't want."
"How long are you going to keep me here?"
"If you wait long enough you'll find out," was the unsatisfactory answer.
"It won't do you any good to keep me a prisoner, Dan."
"Won't it? Perhaps you think I'm going to let you go so that you can get the officers to arrest my father," sneered the younger Baxter.
"They are bound to get him anyway, sooner or later."
"They'll never get him if they don't catch him this week."
"Why? Is he going to leave the country?"
"That's his business, not yours," said Dan Baxter, and walked away.
"It's too bad he turned up as he did," remarked Arnold Baxter, when he found himself alone with his son. "I thought I'd be safe here until I could slip over to Boston."
"When does that steamer sail for Cape Town, Africa, dad?"
"Tuesday or Wednesday of next week."
"Then all we can do is to keep Dick Rover a prisoner until that time."
"We can't do it, Dan. As soon as he is reported missing this whole vicinity will be searched."
"Do you think they'll find this cottage?"
"Perhaps, although so far I have not been disturbed."
"Tom and Sam Rover came pretty close to locating you, didn't they?"
"They came within half a mile of the spot. But I gave them the slip."
"I wish I could square up with all of the Rovers," went on Dan Baxter savagely. "They have caused me no end of trouble."
"Better leave them alone, Dan. Every time you try to do something you get your fingers burnt."
To this the son could not answer, for he knew that his father spoke the truth.
A long talk followed, and then Dan Baxter left, promising to return before noon of the next day. He was to proceed to a town about twelve miles away and there purchase for his father a new suit of clothing and a preparation for dyeing his hair and beard. With this disguise Arnold Baxter hoped to get away from the vicinity and reach Boston without being recognized.
So far the night had been clear, but now a storm was brewing. From a great distance came a rumble of thunder and occasionally a glimpse of lightning lit up the landscape.
"You'll have a bad journey of it," said Arnold Baxter to his son as the latter was leaving.
"Reckon I'll have to make the best of it," answered Dan. "But I've got used to such things, since I've been knocking around the ocean and elsewhere."
Left to himself, Arnold Baxter paced the floor of the cottage uneasily.
Age was beginning to tell upon him and he was by no means the man he was when introduced to the Rovers years before.
"I wish I was out of it," he murmured to himself. "I'd give a good deal to be on the ocean this minute, bound for some place where I can make a fresh start."