CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSION
"You never have!" declared Tommy.
"Honest!" replied Sandy. "I filled myself up with provisions and crawledunder the blanket and went to sleep just after you went away to get somebear steak for breakfast. Did you get the steak?" the boy added with agrin.
"You bet I did," answered Tommy, "and I brought it back with me," headded, stroking the waistband of his trousers. "How's your shoulder?"
"Fine as a fiddle," was the reply. "I'm not going to have any troublewith it after this! Did you find Chester's fond parent," he added,glancing in the direction of the escaped convict.
"Sure we did," replied Tommy. "And, do you know," the boy went on, "thatwe needn't have bothered about finding him at all. Chester knowseverything about the Fremont case that the father does."
"Is that right, Chester?" asked Sandy.
"Now you come on over here to father," Chester said, "and we'll ask himwhat took place in the private room of Fremont's bank that night, andwe'll see if his memory of the things which occurred there is the sameas mine."
The boys now all trooped to the tent where Mr. Wagner had been placedand Chester asked:
"Do you know why these boys are here, father?"
"To take me back to prison, I suppose," was the almost sullen reply.
"They are here to establish your innocence," the son went on. "Do youknow why?"
The father glanced keenly from his son to the others and finally asked,his voice trembling with excitement:
"Why should they take an interest in me?"
"Because," Will broke in, "you can help us, and we want to help you. Wehave information that you are innocent of the crime of which you wereconvicted, and we believe that you have information which will preventthe conviction of an innocent man."
"Do you refer to the Fremont case?" asked Wagner.
"Exactly," replied Will. "And I'd like to ask you now," the boy went on,"before anything more is said, why you never communicated with youngFremont's attorney. He advertised for you extensively, and you mighthave held conference with him without subjecting yourself to arrest."
"I saw the advertisement," was the reply, "but I thought it was only atrap set by the police. I was determined not to go back to thepenitentiary. If I had been captured by the police, I would have killedmyself. I had no money, no influence, and it would have been impossiblefor me to establish my innocence, so I decided to let young Fremont lookout for himself. I know now that I was wrong."
"You were in the bank that July night?" asked Will.
"Yes, I was there with my son," was the reply.
The boys looked wonderingly at Chester.
"What took place?" asked Will.
"Fremont was working late in his private room, and the janitor andnightwatchman were moving about the building, from the deposit vaults inthe basement to the ironclad room which enclosed the big safe.
"I went there to see Mr. Fremont in order to secure financial help. Hehad been an old friend of my parents, and I had every reason to believethat he would assist me if I could get to him. After a long time Iattracted the attention of the night watchman, and he admitted me at aside door on the request of Mr. Fremont."
"Who else was in the building at that time?" asked Will.
"No one that I know of," was the reply. "I stated my case to Mr. Fremontin the presence of my son and he handed me one hundred dollars in smallbills, advising me to remain in hiding until I could arrange for a newtrial. He said when he gave me the money that the sum was more than hehad left, but that he would never again feel that he needed money.
"I did not understand what he meant, and said so. He told me then thathe had been plunging heavily in Wall street. He said that he had lostevery dollar he had in the world, and that his interest in the bankwould be taken from him the next day unless a wealthy friend he wasdepending on came to his assistance that very night."
"Did he tell you the name of the man he expected there that night?"asked Will.
"He did," replied the escaped convict, "but I do not now recall thename. I can't for the life of me bring it back to my mind."
"The name," Chester interrupted, "was Myron M. Douglass."
"A Chicago multi-millionaire!" exclaimed Will.
"I asked Mr. Fremont what course he intended to pursue, and he repliedthat there was only one thing he could do if the man he had appealed torefused to aid him. As he told me this he opened a drawer in his deskand pointed to an automatic revolver lying on top of a pile of papers."
"And you left it lying there?" asked Will.
"No," Chester answered, "I snatched the revolver out of the drawer andbrought it away with me. When we left the private room by the side door,Mr. Fremont was standing beside his desk with a smile upon a very whiteface. He said he had another revolver in another drawer, and would useit if he did not hear from Mr. Douglass before midnight."
"Did you believe him to be in earnest?" asked Will.
"I did not think he would kill himself when it came down to the realpoint."
"Did you immediately leave the vicinity of the bank?" asked the boy.
"No," replied Chester. "We walked about the building until after twelveo'clock."
"Did you hear any significant sounds?" asked Will.
"Pistol-shots," was the reply.
"Then you knew what had taken place?"
"Yes, sir, we thought we did."
"What next?"
"While we stood at the side door of the bank, wondering what we ought todo, Mr. Fremont's son came running up the steps. At first I feltdisposed to give him some intimation as to what had taken place, but Ihadn't the courage to do so. He opened the side door with a key andentered, and we left the city and the state. We came here, and I wasdazed by a fall, but this last hurt has corrected the injury done by thefirst one."
"There you are!" said Will. "The case is closed. The Boy Scouts may aswell go back to Chicago now. There's one more mystery. Who built thefire in your old cave?"
"I did before the last fall," Wagner said.
"Of course, we can stay here and fish and hunt if we want to," laughedWill, "and I think it may be well to do so for a week or so, but rightnow we have come to The Ending of the Trail."
The boys spent two very pleasant weeks in Wyoming without furtherannoyance. When they returned to Chicago, Wagner and Chester went withthem. The case against young Fremont fell to the ground as soon as thetestimony of Wagner and his son was taken, and the innocence of theescaped convict was established so thoroughly to the satisfaction of thepolice that he was never tried again.
The boys saw both Wagner and Chester were provided with congenialsituations. After the boys had been in Chicago a couple of weeks theymet Katz and Cullen on Clark street. The detectives flamed red in theface at sight of the boys, but were very humble when addressing them.
"We have forgotten what took place in Wyoming," Katz said significantly.
"And so have we," replied Tommy. "No one here knows anything about it!It was rather a mean trick to play on you, but we had to do something toget Wagner to testify in the Fremont case."
"Forget it!" cried Katz, and the two went on their way, after receivingtheir badges from Tommy.
The boys had been in Chicago not more than a month when a letter fromthe famous criminal lawyer brought them to his office again.
"Are you boys ready to take a trip to the north?" he asked. "I want youto go way up into the Hudson Bay country and do a little work that agroup of Boy Scouts can do better than any one else in the world."
"Sure, we'll go!" answered Will. "We were saying last night that we weregetting tired of hanging around Chicago."
The boys started away the very next day. What they saw and did on thejourney will be found in the next volume of this series entitled:
Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds; or, The Signal from the Hills.
The End.
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