Jack Ranger's Western Trip Part 29

"Well, now you have got me," Mr. Liggins said. "I haven't seen Tevis for some years, not since he retired from active work. He speculates in cattle now and then, and I had a letter from him a few months ago."

"Where is that letter now?" asked Jack, his voice trembling with eagerness.

"Land live you! I guess I burned it up," replied Mr. Liggins. "I never save letters. Get too many of 'em. But it was from some place out in Colorado. A little country town, I reckon, or I'd have remembered the name."

"Try to think of it," pleaded Jack. "A lot may depend on it. I may be able to get Mr. Tevis's address from the Capital Bank in Denver, but they may refuse to give it to me, or may have lost it."

"Wish I could help you, son," said Mr. Liggins, sympathetically. "But I reckon I lost that letter. Hold on, though, maybe I can fix you up.

You say his address is at the Capital Bank?"

"That's what I understand."

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised. Come to think of it now, he did write me he transacted all his business through them. More than that he sent me a sort of card to use in case I ever got out there, and wanted to see him. Said there was reasons why he didn't want every one to know where he was, so he instructed the bank to give his address to only those who showed a certain kind of card. I reckon I kept that card as a sort of curiosity."

"I hope so," murmured Jack.

The stockman began looking through a big wallet he pulled from his pocket. It was stuffed with papers and bills.

"Here it is!" he exclaimed, as he extended a rather soiled bit of pasteboard. "Queer looking thing."

Indeed it was. The card had a triangle drawn in the center. Inside of this was a circle, with a representation of an eye. In each of the angles were, respectively, a picture of a dagger, a revolver and a gun. On top appeared this:

"_In Medio tutissimus ibis_"

"Don't seem to mean anything as far as I've ever been able to make out," Mr. Liggins said. "Looks like a cross between a secret order card and a notice from the vigilance committee. And them words on the top I take to be some foreign language, but I never went to school enough to learn 'em."

"They're Latin," said Jack, "and mean, literally, 'you will go most safely in the middle,' or, I suppose, 'the middle way is safest.'"

"That's like Orion Tevis," commented the stockman. "He was always a cautious fellow, and rather queer here,"--he tapped his forehead.

"But now I don't mind giving you that card. It may be no good, and it may help you. If it does I'll be glad of it. I owe you a good turn.

That was one of my steers that broke away, and I'm glad it didn't cause a freight wreck."

"I'll take good care of this," said Jack, as he put the card in his pocket, "and send it back to you."

"Well, if you find Tevis, just do as he says about it," the cattleman answered. "Now I'll drive you back to the city."

Jack was much pleased at getting the card. He felt it would help him in his strange quest after his father.

"It will be additional evidence, for us" he said to John. "Mr. Tevis might think the rings were spurious."

"Not much danger of that," the Indian answered. "Still, the card may come in handy."

Mr. Liggins drove the boys to the hotel where they were to stay over night. They consulted the time-tables in the lobby, and learned that their train did not leave until the next afternoon.

"Now for a good night's sleep," said Jack, as he and his chums were being taken up in the elevator to their rooms that night. At the sound of the lad's voice a tall, dark man, in the corner of the car started. Then, as he caught a glimpse of the boys' faces, he turned so his own was in the shadow.

"Well, well, luck has certainly turned things my way," he murmured.

"Here's where I get even for the trick they played me on the train."

Little imagining they were menaced by one who felt himself their enemy, the three chums went to their rooms, which adjoined.

"Very good," whispered the dark man, who had remained in the corridor as the boys walked it. "I think I will pay you a visit to-night."

CHAPTER XIX

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

The boys were so tired from their day's adventures, and their travel that they did not need a bit of paregoric to make them sleep, as Nat expressed it, while he was undressing. They left the connecting doors open between their rooms, and, after putting their money and valuables under their pillows, soon fell into deep slumbers.

It was about two o'clock in the morning when a dark figure stole along the corridor and came to a halt outside the door leading to Jack's room.

"Doesn't make much difference which one I go in, I s'pose," was a whispered comment from the man, who was the same that had ridden up with the boys in the elevator.

There was a slight clicking about the lock. Then something snapped.

"No go that time," whispered the man. "Try another key."

He selected one from among a bunch he held in his hand, and inserted it in the lock of the door leading to Jack's room. This time there was a different sort of click,

"That's the time I did it," the intruder remarked softly. "Now to see if I can't get some of the money they made me lose on that other deal."

Cautiously the man pushed open the door a few inches. It did not squeak, but, even when he had ascertained this, the thief did not enter at once. He paused, listening to the breathing of the three boys.

"Sound asleep," he muttered. "No trouble. This is easy."

On tiptoes he entered the room. The lights were all out but enough illumination came in from the street lights through the windows, to enable the intruder to see dimly. He noted that the connecting doors were open.

"Easier than I thought," he muttered. "Now if they're like other travelers they have everything under their pillows. If they only knew that is the easiest place to get anything from! Pillows are so soft, and you can get your hand under one without waking up the slightest sleeper, if you go slow and careful."

Up to the bedside of Jack the man stole. At every other step he stopped to listen. He moved as silently as a cat.

"I fancy the laugh will be on the other side this trip," the man murmured. "I ought to get considerable from all three of them."

By this time he had come so near to where Jack was sleeping that he could put out his hand and touch the bed. An instant later his fingers were gliding under the pillow. They grasped a leather pocketbook. Had it been light enough a smile of satisfaction could have been seen on the face of the thief in the night.

"Number one," he remarked in a soft whisper.

He moved into the next room, taking care not to stumble over a chair or stool. He easily secured Nat's valuables, and then ventured into John's apartment.

"Ten minutes more and I'm through," the burglar thought.

When he got to John's bedside, he listened for a few seconds. The Indian student could be heard breathing in his slumbers, but at the sound the man hesitated.

"A slight sleeper," was his unspoken comment. "Liable to wake up on the slightest alarm. I've got to be careful."