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" again!" cried Ralph.

His thoughts ran rapidly. At a good many turns of late, it seemed, the miserly magnate of Stanley Junction was coming into his life.

To Ralph the solution of the present problem was prompt and logical: Farrington probably had the unfortunate Mrs. Davis in his power. He had hired Mort Bemis and Ike Slump to kidnap her. Now he himself was at the mercy and in the clutches of his conscienceless confederates.

Ralph theorized that he had paid his accomplices a goodly sum of money for their assistance. For a time, with plenty of ready cash in their possession, they had found diversion in the city. The longing to cut a dash at home, however, had brought them back to Stanley Junction.

It looked as if Slump had set a price for his silence and secrecy regarding the magnate's schemes. He had probably demanded that Farrington go on his bail bond, and afterwards stand Rh