Part 9 (1/2)
Stanhope and her daughter, we'd have you in the lock-up inside of twenty-four hours. We understand that you and Sobber have been threatening the Stanhopes and the Lanings again, and also threatening us. Now these threats have got to stop, and you have got to behave yourself. If you don't behave yourself we are going to make it our business to see that you are arrested, and we'll do our level best to have you placed behind the bars for a long term of years.”
”I--I--will--er----” stammered the former teacher of Putnam Hall. He did not know how to proceed.
”Ah, don't you get scared!” came in a low voice from inside the toolroom. ”You know what the Rovers are.”
”It must be Tad Sobber!” cried Tom. ”Sobber, if you are in there why don't you show yourself? Are you scared?”
”Of course he is scared,” put in Sam.
”I'm not scared!” roared the bullying voice of the youth who had claimed the fortune from Treasure Isle. ”I am not scared and you know it.”
”So you are really there, Sobber,” put in d.i.c.k. ”I thought as much.
Well, you heard what I said to Crabtree. It applies to you as well.”
”Bah, d.i.c.k Rover, you can't scare me!” returned Tad Sobber savagely.
”Just now you think you are on top. But wait, that's all. That treasure belongs to me and I mean to have it. And I mean to square up for the way you have treated me, too.”
”Are you two going to settle down here?” asked Sam, just for something to say.
”That is none of your business,” answered Josiah Crabtree. ”Now I want you to leave.”
”Sobber, what has become of Jerry Koswell and Bart Larkspur?” asked d.i.c.k, wis.h.i.+ng to know something of those former good-for-nothing students of Brill College.
”Never you mind what has become of them,” answered Sobber. ”But don't think you have seen the last of them, d.i.c.k Rover. They haven't forgotten how you treated them on Chesoque Island and elsewhere, and they mean to even up that score.”
”Are they here with you?”
”No. But I'm going to keep in touch with them, and some day we---- But never mind now. Just you wait, that's all!” finished Tad Sobber, meaningly.
”You'll try to play us foul,--just as you tried in the past,” said d.i.c.k. ”Very well, I'll remember that, Sobber. And you remember what I told you. The next time there is trouble we'll fight it out to the bitter end.”
There was a moment of silence.
”I want you to go away,” said Josiah Crabtree, and there was just a trace of nervousness in his tones. Evidently d.i.c.k's firm words had had some effect.
”We are going,” answered d.i.c.k. ”Both of you remember what I said.” And then he motioned to his brothers; and all three left the old mill.
”Well, did ye find the feller ye was after?” queried Peter Marley, as the boys came out to where he stood with the horses.
”We did,” answered d.i.c.k, and nudged his brothers, to keep them quiet.
”It's Josiah Crabtree all right. And we had quite a talk with him.”
”Wot's he going to do here?”
”He says it is his property--left to him by a distant relative. He ordered us away.”
”Must have been Foxwell left him the place. Is he going to start the mill up ag'in?”