Page:Dave Porter at Star Ranch.djvu/78

66 then the door was tried. Soon a key was inserted in the lock, the door was opened, and a chambermaid showed herself.

"Untie me at once!" cried Dave.

The maid turned up the gas and then uttered a cry of astonishment. Without waiting to question the youth she flew out of the room and down the stairs, to return, a few minutes later, with a burly man.

"What's this mean?" asked the man, as he commenced to untie the ropes that held Dave.

"It's a trick that was played on me," answered Dave, thinking rapidly. He was on the point of stating that he had been robbed, but he did not wish to create too much of a scene. He felt sure that Nat would, sooner or later, return his belongings to him.

"A trick, eh?" said the hotel proprietor. "Certainly a queer one. Where are the fellows who hired this room?"

"I don't know. They tied me fast and left."

"Did you know them?"

"I knew one of them—he goes to boarding school with me."

"Oh, I see, a schoolboy's trick, eh? You schoolboys are up to all sorts of pranks."

"You don't know where they went to, do you?" questioned Dave, as he leaped up from the bed and stretched himself.