“How can Gabe Werner be down here?” questioned Andy. “Why, we left him in New York City!”
“I can’t help that, Andy. It was Werner just as sure as I am standing here. I just happened to glance out of the window and saw him crossing the roadway. He turned his face straight toward me, and I couldn’t help but recognize him.”
“Where did he go?”
“I’ll point out the place when we get there.”
By this time the four Rovers had left the boardwalk and were plowing along on the side of the road through mud that varied from an inch to six inches in depth. They had started to run, but were soon compelled to slow up.
“Gee, this is something fierce!” panted Andy.
“Oh, you cinder path!” chanted his twin. “Wouldn’t you like to do a hundred-yard dash on this road?”
“It’s not much farther,” announced Jack. “I saw him heading for that shack yonder.”
The place he mentioned was a small building erected of rough boards, with a galvanized roof. They neared the shack to find two men sitting before it on a log smoking their pipes. They appeared somewhat startled.
“Did a young fellow just pass this way?” questioned Jack quickly.
The two men looked at the Rovers curiously, and then one shook his head.
“Don’t think he did, Stranger. I didn’t see anybody, did you, Tom?”
“No,” was the positive answer.
By the look on their faces Jack felt that the men were not telling the truth. Yet what he was to do he did not know.
“Maybe he went back to that garage,” he suggested, pointing to a smaller building in the rear.
“Look around if you think anybody is there,” said the first man who had spoken, and the boys hurried down to the garage, which stood open. As they did this one of the men sauntered into the shack.
“Say, what’s the meaning of this?” he demanded of Gabe Werner, who stood hiding behind a door.
“I’ll tell you as soon as they go away,” was the answer of the former bully of Colby Hall. “Don’t let them come in here and see me.”
“All right, they sha’n’t come in,” was the man’s laconic reply; and then he went outside again, to resume his smoking.
Having walked around the garage and peered inside, the four Rovers walked again to the shack. The man who had just come out of the building leered at them.
“Didn’t find the fellow you were after, did you?” he queried.
“No,” answered Jack shortly. He did not like the appearance of the man in the least.
“Want to see him particularly?”
“I want to give him a good thrashing—that’s what I want to do!” exclaimed Jack. “And after that I might turn him over to the police, if there is any such thing in this town.”
“We haven’t any police here. We run things to suit ourselves.”
“What do you want to lick him for?” questioned the other man.
“He threw pepper in my eyes once, and he’s done a lot of other things he oughtn’t to have done,” returned Jack, and then turned back to the hotel, and his cousins followed.
“Those two men were on the hotel veranda when we first went there,” said Randy. “I noticed them, and I did not like their looks at all.”
“Do you know what I think?” returned Jack. “I believe Gabe Werner was in that shack all the time. I think he must have seen us coming and given those fellows the tip. They both tried to appear cool, but they were both flustered.”
“But what can Gabe Werner be doing in this out-of-the-way place?” demanded Fred.
“He probably came here, Fred, just for the excitement. Hundreds of young fellows have drifted to the oil fields just as years ago they drifted to the gold fields. They gamble in oil stocks and do what they can, trying to strike it rich. It’s a great temptation to any fellow who hasn’t a well-paying job at home.”
“But Gabe Werner ought to be going to school,” put in Andy.
“True, Andy. But Gabe himself thinks he is old enough to do as he pleases. Evidently from the way he acts his folks can no longer control him.”
When the boys got back to the hotel they found Dick Rover looking for them. He listened in surprise to what they had to say.
“It certainly is odd if that Gabe Werner is here,” he said. “And more than likely you are right—otherwise that fellow wouldn’t have taken such pains to hide himself. Well, if he is here, you must watch that he doesn’t play any more tricks on you.”
A fair supper was had at the hotel. During the meal both Fred and Andy noticed that the two men who had questioned them in the hotel office concerning the Lorimer Spell claim were watching their Uncle Dick closely.
“They seem to want to know all about our business,” said Fred, when mentioning this to his uncle.
“Oh, that’s the case in every oil town or mining camp,” answered Dick Rover. “Men are always anxious to get a lead, as they call it, on what is going to happen next. If they think a fellow may strike it rich in some particular location they rush after him like a flock of sheep and try to get claims as close to him as possible.”
After the meal was finished the boys took a walk around the town to see how the place looked at night and thinking they might possibly run across Gabe Werner.
The narrow street with the single boardwalk was crowded with people, some well dressed and others in the roughest of costumes. There was loud talking and jesting, and most of the pedestrians seemed to be in good humor, although occasionally they would pass a group evidently out of luck and willing to let everybody know it.
“No more oil fields for me!” they heard one man exclaim, as he lunged past, evidently partly under the influence of liquor. “I’ve sunk forty-five thousand dollars in wells already, and not a sniff of gas to show for it. I’m through!”
“That’s the other side of the picture,” remarked Randy. “Evidently he’s got rid of every cent he had, and now he’s so downhearted he is taking to drink.”
“I don’t see where he can get it in these days,” said Fred.
“Oh, they manage to get it somehow.”
The moving picture theater was open, and a crowd was swarming inside. The pictures were old and of a wild Western nature, and none of the lads had any desire to see them. They passed on and looked into the windows of a couple of the general stores, where everything from matches to bedding seemed to be for sale. Then they came to a corner where there was a side street which was little more than an alleyway. Along this were a dozen or more shanties set in anything but a regular row.
On the corner was a flaring banner announcing that here was located the Famous California Chop Suey Restaurant. Behind the small dirty windows ten or fifteen men were eating at half a dozen tables covered with oilcloth.
“Look!” exclaimed Fred, pointing in through the open door of the restaurant. “There are those same men who were at our hotel. Evidently they can’t be stopping there—or at least they don’t eat there.”
“Isn’t it queer that they should hang around our hotel and then come down here for a meal?” remarked Randy.
“They’re talking to another man—somebody who wasn’t at our hotel,” said Fred. “Just see how excited they seem to be!” he added quickly, after one of the men drew a paper from his pocket and all of them bent over it with interest.
Then the stranger of the crowd began to talk to the others very earnestly.
“Let us walk down the alleyway, and perhaps we can find out something about those men,” suggested Jack. “You say they asked about Lorimer Spell and his claim? They may know something that my dad would like to find out.”
“All right,” said Fred.
The four Rovers turned the corner of the restaurant and walked slowly down the alleyway along a narrow cinder path. This path ran close to the side of the building, and here
were located several small windows, one of them close to where stood the table at which the men inside were seated.
“It’s a mighty good thing that we ran across those Rovers the very day they came in,” one of the men was saying. “If it hadn’t been for that they might have gone up to the Lorimer Spell claim and done something that would queer the whole thing.”
“Oh, I don’t think they could do that, Tate,” returned the man whom the lads had not seen before. “You know at the best Spell’s claim on the land was not perfectly clear.”
“Well, that’s how you look at it, Davenport,” said another of the men. “You must remember, Lorimer Spell had a good many friends in this neighborhood. Of course he was a queer Dick and all that sort of thing, but in spite of that folks here would want to have Spell’s wishes in this matter upheld.”
“Oh, I know we run some risk,” returned the man called Davenport. “But I think the stake is worth it.”
“To be sure it is!” came from one of the others.
“The question is,” came from the man named Tate, “how are we going to get at it? Do you think you’ll be able to see the documents this man Rover must carry?”
“Of course I’ll see them. I’ll get at them some way,” returned Carson Davenport firmly. He was a large-built man, with coal-black eyes and black hair and his face had a rather cruel expression.
“Somebody said that Lorimer Spell placed his valuables in some safe deposit vault,” went on one of the men. “In that case, this Richard Rover wouldn’t have them.”
“I don’t see why not,” said another. “If he became Spell’s heir he would have a right to do anything, and the bank would have to give the documents up.”
More talk of a like nature followed, and the Rover boys listened with keen interest to every word that was said. They recognized in Carson Davenport the man who had written to Jack’s father hoping to get the latter interested in some fake oil companies, trusting that The Rover Company in New York City would be able to dispose of the worthless stocks to their customers—people who trusted them implicitly in all their financial transactions. While these negotiations were going on Jake Tate, Davenport’s right-hand man, had learned that Lorimer Spell was dead and that he had made Dick Rover his sole heir. This was at a time when Tate and Davenport, as well as the other men, were trying to get possession of the Spell land, feeling sure that there was oil on it. They had been on the point of communicating with Dick Rover, thinking they might get the claim away from him, when he had surprised the whole crowd by his unexpected appearance in Columbina.
“We’ve got to have quick action in this,” declared Jake Tate. “The longer we delay the worse off we’ll be.”
“Yes, but you’ve got to find out about those papers first,” said one of the other men, lighting a cigar.
“You leave me to do that,” said Carson Davenport. “I’m sure I know exactly how to handle this man Rover.”
“He must be a pretty shrewd fellow, Davenport. Otherwise he wouldn’t be holding such an important position in that Wall Street company,” remarked Tate.
“I’ve handled men like that before. You leave it to me.”
“But you don’t want him to suspect anything is off color,” said one of the other men.
“I’m not so green, Jackson. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Didn’t you say you thought this Rover had a lot of money?”
“Yes, the whole family has money. But, at the same time, that has nothing to do with it. I’ll tell you what I propose to do,” continued Carson Davenport earnestly. “I’ll wait until I am sure that he——”
This was as much as the Rover boys heard for the time being. Around the corner of the building from the main street had come three figures. They had been abreast, but now they approached on the cinder path in single file. As they came closer the lights from the restaurant fell on their faces, and to their intense surprise the four Rovers recognized Gabe Werner, Nappy Martell, and Slugger Brown.
CHAPTER XXI
WORDS AND BLOWS
The surprise on both sides was equal, and for a moment neither the Rovers nor those in the other crowd uttered a word.
“What are you doing here, Jack Rover?” demanded Nappy Martell at length, as he scowled at the youth and his cousins.
“I might ask the same question of you, Nappy,” was Jack’s return.
“Did you come here from that detention camp?” questioned Fred.
“That’s none of your business,” retorted Slugger Brown.
“You got away from us this afternoon, Gabe Werner, but you’re not going to do it this time,” continued Jack, and caught the rascal by the arm.
“Hi! you let go of me,” howled the bully roughly, and shoved Jack back against the building.
At this Randy leaped forward and also caught hold of Werner. Nappy Martell and Slugger Brown were about to jump in to the assistance of their friend when Fred and Andy interfered.
“You leave them alone,” ordered Fred, with flashing eyes. “He’s one of the meanest fellows in the world. He threw pepper in Jack’s eyes and in the eyes of Ruth Stevenson.”
The loud talking so close to a window of the restaurant attracted the attention of the men inside, and the fellow named Jake Tate thrust his head out to see what was going on.
“Say, what do you know about this?” he exclaimed, turning to his companions. “Those four young Rovers are out here right by the window!”
“You don’t say so!” burst out Carson Davenport.
“If they are by this window maybe they were spying on us,” put in the man named Jackson.
In the meanwhile there was something of a fight going on outside. Gabe Werner had tried to break away, and then launched a blow at Jack, who returned by hitting him a crack in the jaw.
“See here, you leave Werner alone!” blustered Slugger Brown.
“You keep out of this, Slugger!” cried Jack, and then, as Werner hit out a second time, Jack dodged and the bully’s fist struck the side of the building, skinning several of his knuckles. Then Jack landed a blow with all the force he could command on Werner’s left ear, and the rascal went down on the cinder path and rolled over into the roadway.
By this time the men in the restaurant had run outside and were coming up.
“What’s the rumpus here?” demanded Jake Tate, pushing his way through the crowd of boys. He was a burly individual, and could at times put on a most aggressive manner.
“We caught these four fellows right by this window,” declared Nappy Martell, with a sharp look first at Tate and then at Davenport.
“It looked to us as though they might be spying on you,” added Slugger Brown, and he too gave Davenport a peculiar look.
“Spying on us, eh?” muttered the oil company promoter in anything but a pleasant manner. “Fine piece of business to be in!”
By this time Gabe Werner had rolled over and gotten to his feet. But instead of coming at Jack again, he kept at a safe distance, in the meanwhile sucking his bruised knuckles and nursing his left ear.
“We have a right to walk on this street if we want to,” remarked Randy.
“They were standing right by this window, and appeared to be listening to something,” declared Slugger Brown.
“Then they must have been listening to what we were saying,” grumbled Jackson.
“How long were you at this window, young fellow?” demanded Jake Tate.
“I guess that’s our own business,” and Randy’s eyes flashed defiance.
“You want to keep your eyes on those Rovers,” cautioned Nappy Martell. “They’re as sly as foxes. I know ‘em!”
“And they’ll do you harm if they can,” added Slugger Brown.
“He is saying that because we wouldn’t stand for any of his underhanded work,” explained Fred.
“We never di
d stand for anything that wasn’t on the level,” added Andy, and looked at Carson Davenport suggestively.
“See here, young fellow, don’t you get fresh!” cried the oil company promoter. And then he added with a sneer: “I reckon you’ve been listening to more than was good for you.”
“Well, if you want to know it, we heard a few things that surprised us,” answered Jack boldly.
“What did you hear?” questioned Jake Tate quickly.
“We heard what you had to say about the Lorimer Spell claim, if you must know it,” retorted Fred.
“Yes, and we are going to report it to my Uncle Dick at once,” said Andy.
At this the men were evidently much disturbed, and Tate pulled Davenport back and whispered something into his ear. Then both conferred with Jackson. In the meantime Nappy and Slugger came forward again with Werner close behind them.
“You tried to run things to suit yourselves up at Colby Hall,” sneered Slugger. “But you’ll find it a different story down here.”
“Don’t you dare to tell any stories about us,” warned Nappy. “If you do you’ll get in bad, mark my words. I’ve stood all I’m going to stand from your crowd.”
“If you are behaving yourself and trying to earn an honest living, we’ll have nothing to say to anybody about your past,” answered Jack. “The war is over, and the question of how you aided those German sympathizers is a thing of the past.”
“Don’t you trust ‘em,” growled Werner. “They’ll do their level best to get you in bad. I know ‘em!”
“You just let me get at you, Werner, and I’ll show you what I’ll do,” retorted Jack, and made a move in the direction of the fellow. And at this the bully lost no time in retreating. He was evidently afraid that the Rovers would hand him over to the authorities.
By this time the men were coming forward again.
“See here, boys, we don’t want any trouble,” said Carson Davenport oilily. “We were only talking about that Lorimer Spell claim in a general way. I’ll explain everything to Mr. Rover’s satisfaction in the morning. I only want to work with him in this matter. We could get along so much better than if we worked separately.”
The Rover Boys Megapack Page 416