Part 46 (1/2)

”They sure must be rascals,” returned the man at the desk. ”Well, we'd do all we can. But maybe they've cleared out for good.”

Towards noon came a telephone message from Sam to the hotel. d.i.c.k had just come in and he answered it.

”Tom is a little better,” said the youngest Rover. ”He is conscious and has asked about dad and you. He has taken a little nourishment, too.”

”What does the doctor say about the case?” questioned d.i.c.k, anxiously.

”He said it is a strange case and that he will watch it closely. I heard him say to the nurse to watch Tom very closely.”

”Why, that he was so low?”

”No, that he might go out of his mind. Oh, d.i.c.k, wouldn't that be awful!” and Sam's voice showed his distress.

”You mean that he might go--go insane, or something like that?”

”Yes,--not for always, you understand, but temporarily.”

”Well, all they can do is to watch him, Sam. And you keep close by, in case anything more happens,” added d.i.c.k, and then told his brother of what had been done in the metropolis towards straightening out the business tangle.

Mr. Powell was to see some people in Brooklyn regarding the land deal in which Anderson Rover held an interest, and he had asked d.i.c.k to meet him in that borough at four o'clock. At three o'clock d.i.c.k left the Outlook Hotel to keep the engagement.

”You had better stay here until I get back, in case any word comes in about Tom,” said he to his father.

”Very well, d.i.c.k; I shall be glad of the rest,” replied Anderson Rover.

He had already given the particulars of how he had been kidnapped while on his way to meet j.a.pson. The broker had come up accompanied by the disguised Crabtree, and he had been forced into a taxicab and a sponge saturated with chloroform had been held to his nose. He had become unconscious, and while in that condition had been taken to some house up in Harlem. From there he had been transferred to the Ellen Rodney on the evening before the boys had discovered his whereabouts.

”They treated me very harshly,” Mr. Rover had said. ”Mr. Crabtree was particularly mean.”

”Well, he is suffering for it,” d.i.c.k had answered. ”Sam telephoned that his leg was in very bad shape and the doctors thought he would be a cripple for life.”

To get to Brooklyn d.i.c.k took the subway, crossing under the East River. He did not know much about the place, but had received instructions how to reach the offices where he was to meet Mr. Powell and the others.

There was a great rush on the streets, owing to a small fire in the vicinity. d.i.c.k stopped for a minute to watch a fire engine at work on a corner, and as he did so, somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

”d.i.c.k Rover! of all people!” came the exclamation. ”What are you doing in Brooklyn?”

d.i.c.k turned quickly, to find himself confronted by a tall, heavy-set youth, dressed in a business suit.

”Dan Baxter!” he cried. ”How are you?” and he shook hands.

As my old readers well know, Dan Baxter was an old acquaintance of the Rover boys. When at Putnam Hall he had been a great bully, and had tried more than once to get the best of our heroes. But he had been foiled, and then he had drifted to the West and South, and there the Rovers had found him, away from home and practically penniless. They had set him on his feet, and he had gotten a position as a traveling salesman, and now he counted the Rovers his best friends, and was willing to do anything for them.

”Oh, I'm pretty well,” answered Dan Baxter, with a grin. ”My job agrees with me.”

”What are you doing, Dan?”

”Oh, I'm still selling jewelry--doing first-rate, too,” added the former bully, a bit proudly.

”I am mighty glad to hear it.”