f.
But it was you and this--this lad who really rounded up the rascal."

"You forget Chip Slider, Mr. Beckley, don't you?" Paul Jones liked to be
fair, though at times he was too forward. "Chip was along--why, where is
Chip? I'd forgot him for the moment."

Link Fraley and Phil Way were bending over Chip's still prostrate form
where he lay after being so maltreated by the scowling villain who now
lay bound not more than ten feet away.

Attention thus drawn, the entire party devoted themselves to the task of
reviving young Slider, who it appeared was only stunned and bruised by
his treatment at the hands of the robber.

Presently Mr. Beckley again took the lead in questioning. "Of course I--we
feel deeply grateful. The Longknives will do almost anything for those
who were most active in securing this fellow and his ill-gotten booty.
He'll have to face a murder charge too, as there is little doubt but that
he dragged Grandall to his death inside that burning building. And now
that we have the thief and the money--"

"Are you sure we've got the money, sir?" It was MacLester who asked this
for, Scotch-like, Dave was always ready to cast doubt upon most anything
that was not proved before all men. "I don't see any money!"

"Of course we may not see it right now, yet I don't doubt but that you
and Murky know where it is?" This to Nels and Paul, who both looked rather
nonplussed. "Where is it, Nels?"

"I--I--" Anderson was stammering and confused in manner. "I bane not sure
I can tell. That feller, he know." He pointed at Murky who glared evilly
at the crowd in general.

"Ye needn't look for me to tell anything," he snarled. "I got no money!"

"If you had, you'd lie about it," was Beckley's comment that seemed to
meet the general opinion among his captors.

Murky relapsing into sullen silence, Beckley resumed his queries.

"Do you mean that having gotten this scoundrel here," indicating Murky,
"you don't know where his plunder is?"

"Wish I did, sir," said Paul Jones, turning from Chip who was just
beginning to be conscious of outward things.

"And you, too, do not know where the money is?" Beckley turned again to
Anderson, who squirmed rather uneasily.

"Wush I did," the latter muttered. "I bane coom after the boys. Ven I coom
oop wid 'em, dey vass in mix-oop wid heem," pointing at Murky.

"That fellow must 'a' had the money hid out somewhere," said Paul. "We
followed him for miles. Finally we lost the trail,