r like to hurt peoples; but if that is your command, sir, I
will obey," said Wampus, setting his jaws tightly together.

The car gathered speed and shot over the road at the rate of twenty
miles an hour; then twenty-five--then thirty--and finally forty. The
girls sat straight and looked eagerly ahead. Forms were darting here
and there among the buildings of the ranch, quickly congregating in
groups on either side of the roadway. A red flag fluttered in the
center of the road, some four feet from the ground.

"Look out!" shouted Uncle John. "Stop, Wampus; stop her, I say!"

Wampus saw why, and applied his brakes. The big car trembled, slowed
down, and came to a stop less than a foot away from three ugly bars of
barbed wire which had been placed across the road. They were now just
beside the buildings, and a triumphant shout greeted them from their
captors, the remittance men.

CHAPTER XII

CAPTURED

"Welcome to Hades!" cried a stout little man in a red blouse, sticking
his leering countenance through the door of the limousine.

"Shut up, Stubby," commanded a hoarse voice from the group. "Haven't
you any manners? You haven't been introduced yet."

"I've engaged the dark eyed one for the first dance," persisted
Stubby, as a dozen hands dragged him away from the door.

The Major sprang out and confronted the band.

"What are we to understand by this outrage?" he demanded fiercely.

"It means you are all invited to a party, and we won't accept any
regrets," replied a laughing voice.

Patsy put her head out of the window and looked at the speaker. It was
Mr. Algernon Tobey. He had two strips of sticking plaster over his
nose. One of his eyes was swollen shut and the other was almost
closed. Yet he spoke in a voice more cheerful than it was when they
first met him.

"Don't be afraid," he added. "No one has the slightest intention of
injuring any of you in any way, I assure you."

"We have not the same intention in regard to you, sir," replied Major
Doyle, fuming with rage, for his "Irish was up," as he afterward
admitted. "Unless you at once remove that barricade and allow us to
proceed we will not be responsible for what happens. You are warned,
sir!"

Uncle John, by this time standing beside the Major upon the ground,
had been quietly "sizing up the situation," as he would have expressed
it. He found they had been captured by a party of fourteen men, most
of whom were young, although three or four,