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Rh the captain was. Chet smiled to himself to think how foolish the rascal had been not to have de stroyed the epistles.

"But the greatest of villains occasionally over reach themselves," he said to Paul. "I fancy this is proof enough to show what an awfully bad man Captain Grady is."

"You are right, Chet," said Dottery, after a careful examination. "He is a hoss thief as great as was old Sol Davids, and he is trying to rob yer uncle out of a mine claim as well."

"Not only that, but as Jeff Jones said, he is with the crowd who holds my uncle a prisoner, sir. That, to me is the worst part of it."

"I don't know but what ye are right."

The captain was raising such a row that to quiet him Jack Blowfen threw him bodily into a dark closet and turned the key on him.

"Now if ye don't quit yer noise, I'll gag ye in the bargain," said the cowboy, and thereupon the captain became quiet at once.

It was now quite in line to hold a council of war, as Paul termed it. But before this was done all hands went to work to move the Winthrop household effects back to where they belonged.