little dreaming of the surprise in store for them.
CHAPTER VII
DICK IS MADE A PRISONER
The hallway of the tenement was pitch-dark, the door standing open for a foot or more.
From a rear room came a thin stream of light under a door and a low murmur of voices.
"I guess he went to the rear," whispered Dick. "You wait around the corner till I see."
Noiselessly he entered the hallway and walked to the door of the rear room.
Listening, he heard an Irishman and his wife talking over some factory work the man had been promised.
"Girk can't be there," he thought, when he heard an upper door open.
"Hullo, Buddy, back again!" muttered a strangely familiar voice, and then the upper door was closed and locked.
Wondering where he had heard that voice before, Dick came forward again and ascended the rickety stairs. They creaked dismally, and he fully expected to see somebody come out and demand what was going on. But nobody came, and soon the upper hall was gained, and he reached the door which he rightfully guessed had just been opened and closed.
"Yes, everything is all O. K.," were the first words to reach his ears. "But I had a sweet job to find Mooney. He's cracked on music, it seems, and had gone to a concert instead of attending to business."
"But he won't fail us to-morrow morning?" came in a second voice, and now Dick recognized the speaker as Arnold Baxter, his father's worst enemy, who had been left at the hospital in Ithaca with a broken limb and several smashed ribs. Baxter had tackled Dick while the two were on a moving train, and, while trying to throw the boy off, had gotten the worst of the encounter by tumbling off himself.
"Arnold Baxter! is it possible!" muttered Dick to himself. "He must have a constitution like iron to get around so soon."
"No, Mooney won't fail us," said Buddy Girk. "I gave him a mighty good talkin' to, I did."
"I can't afford to have him go back on us," growled Arnold Baxter. "I'm not well enough yet to do this job alone."
"How does your chest feel?"
"Oh, the ribs seem to be all right. But my leg isn't. I shouldn't wonder but what I'll have to limp more or less for the rest of my life."
"That puts me in mind. Whom do you reckon I clapped eyes on down at the concert hall to-night?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Any of our enemies?"
"Those three Rover boys."
"What!" Arnold Baxter pushed back his chair in amazement. "Can they be — be following me?" he gasped.
"No. I saw 'em by accident. They had been to the concert."
"But they don't belong here. They live on a farm called Valley Brook, near the village of Dexter's Corners."
"They were with another boy — a well-dressed chap. Maybe they are paying him a visit."
Arnold Baxter shook his head. "I don't like this. If they have got wind of anything — "
"But how could they get wind?" persisted Buddy Girk.
"That would remain to be found out. You must remember, Buddy, that they are down on me because of that row I once had with their father over that gold mine."
"I know it. And, by the way, I never got nothin' out of that deal neither," growled Buddy Girk.
"Didn't I tell you that some papers were missing? I half believe Anderson Rover took them with him when he set out for Africa."
"Then they are gone for good."
"Not if he comes back, Buddy. That man is like his boys — bound to turn up when you least expect it. That gold mine was — What's that?"
Arnold Baxter stopped short and leaped to his feet. A wrangle in the hallway just outside of the door had interrupted him.
"Vot vos you doin' here, hey?" came in a heavy German voice. "I dink me you vos up to no goot, hey?"
"Let me go!" came from Dick. "I have done no harm."
"I dink you vos von sneak thief alretty! Stand still bis I find owit."
"It's Dutch Jake!" cried Buddy Girk. "He has collared somebody in the hall. I'll see who it is."
He threw open the door and allowed the light of a lamp to fall on Dick and the burly man who had captured the youth.
"Great smoke! It's one of dem Rover boys!" he cried, dropping into his old-time manner of speech. "Wot are you doin' here?"
"You know dot young feller?" demanded the man who had been mentioned as Dutch Jake.
"Yes, I do, and he's up to no good here," replied Buddy Girk.
"Den maybe I best kick him owit kvick, hey?"
"Yes — no — wait a minute." Girk turned to Arnold Baxter. "Here is that oldest Rover boy spying on us."
"Ha! I told you they were regular rats for that sort of work," fumed Arnold Baxter. "Don't let him go."
"Why not?"
"He may know too much. Bring him in here till I question him."
"Not much!" burst out Dick. "Help! hel — "
His cries came to a sudden ending as Buddy Girk clapped a large and somewhat dirty hand over his mouth.
"Run him in here, Jake," said the former tramp. "He is a fellow we have an account to settle with."
"Is dot so? Vell, I ton't vont me no troubles," answered the German doubtfully.
"It's all right — he — he stole some of our money. That's right, in with him," and Dick was run into the room, after which Dutch Jake retired as suddenly as he had appeared. He was an elderly man, of a queer turn of mind, and, all by himself, occupied a garret room of the tenement.
As soon as the door was locked Arnold Baxter faced Dick. "Now will you keep quiet, or shall I knock you over with this?" he demanded, and raised a heavy cane he had grown into the habit of carrying since he had escaped from the hospital, on the very day that the authorities were going to transfer him to the jail at Ithaca.
"Don't you dare to touch me, Arnold Baxter!" cried the boy boldly.
"Will you keep quiet?"
"That depends. What do you want of me?"
"You followed Girk to this place and were spying on us."
"I think I had a right to follow Girk. He is wanted by the authorities,
