“Now,” said the assailant, “if you’ll give up that piece of paper, I’ll let you go.”
“What do you mean?” gasped the victim, whose throat was firmly held.
“No fooling,” was the reply, given in an angry tone. “Just hand it over, or it will be the worse for you.”
“Hand what over?”
“The paper.”
“What paper?”
“You know as well as I,” was the reply, accompanied with a curse. “I saw you take it out of his hand.”
“I do not understand you.”
And the victim struggled to free himself. It was in vain. He was held in a vise-like grip.
“Are you not Colonel Conrad’s nephew?” asked the assailant, beginning to cherish doubts as to having hold of the right man.
“Yes, I am Colonel Conrad’s nephew,” was the reply.
“Then do as I wish, or you’ll be murdered, too.”
“I murdered, too! Please explain yourself. And I’ll thank you to give me a clear idea of what you want. If it is my watch, take it. I am helpless; and to have my throat in the embrace of your arm is far from comfortable. You can have my pocket-book, too, although there is precious little in it. At all events, I wish you would transact your business, whatever it is, and then release me.”
Further words were cut short by a blow on the head from a small bag of shot, and Leonard Lester sank back on the seat of the buggy unconscious. For it was he. He had started to return from his fishing excursion at Rocky Beach past midnight, and had arrived in Dalton just in time to fall in with the villain who was in pursuit of Carlos, and to be mistaken for his cousin.
When he first noticed the horseman approaching, he thought it rather strange that he should be out at such an hour, and, of course, did not suspect his object. And when he accosted him, and leaped into the buggy, and made the strange demand for that “piece of paper,” of course Leonard was bewildered. He dared not
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