ld
get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with
our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of
a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as
soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught
by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnapers.
The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the money later
on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a
gang of constables should be watching for any one to come for the note,
they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road.
But no, siree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden
as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle,
locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded
piece of paper into it, and pedals away again back toward Summit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down
the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods,
and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got
near the lantern, and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a
crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

"_Two Desperate Men_.

"_Gentlemen:_ I received your letter to-day by
post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the
return of my son. I think you are a little high in
your demands, and I hereby make you a
counter-proposition, which I am inclined to
believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and
pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and
I agree to take him off your hands. You had better
come at night, for the neighbors believe he is
lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they
would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

"Very respectfully,
"EBENEZER DORSET."

"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent----"

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in
his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We've
got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to