Page:Bob Chester's Grit.djvu/219

Rh "Horace—Chester—was—not—insane."

"Good, I am glad you are reasonable. Now, come with us in our automobile and withdraw the money you have in the banks."

Realizing resistance was vain, Dardus obeyed.

At each bank the boy's benefactors compared their private notes with the amounts the storekeeper withdrew, and, when the task was ended, Bob had fifty thousand dollars in addition to the ranch.

As they emerged from the last bank, however, they did not take the storekeeper into their car, but left him standing on the steps, the picture of woe.

"Now, we'll have a good dinner," announced Mr. Nichols.

During the meal the men who had been so kind to Bob asked him what he intended to do.

"Go back to the ranch and live with John Ford," was the boy's ready reply.

"Yes. We're going into partnership," added the grizzled plainsman.

"And whenever you want a rest or some hunting, there'll be two ranches at your disposal," chimed in Bob, to the railroad magnates.

Before the boy returned to the West, he gave a hundred-dollar bill to Nellie Porter, the waitress who had befriended him, and he also found