"What terrible thing?" asked Frank. "You have not told the entire story, and we do not know what you mean."

"True, true. Listen! With that letter Pacheco--the monster!--sent one of my boy's little fingers!"

"Shimminy Gristmas! I don'd toldt you dot, do I?"

"Horrible! horrible!"

The professor and Hans uttered these exclamations, but Frank was calm and apparently unmoved, with his eyes still fastened on the face of the old man.

"How you toldt dot vos der finger uf your son, mister?"

"That's it, that's it--how could you tell?" asked the professor.

"My son--my own boy--he added a line to the letter, stating that the finger had been taken from his left hand, and that Pacheco threatened to cut off his fingers one by one and send them to me if I did not hasten with the ransom money."

"Dot seddled you!"

"You recognized the handwriting as that of your son?"

"I did; but I recognized something besides that."

"What?"

"The finger."

"Oh, you may have been mistaken in that--surely you may."

"I was not."

"How do you know?"

"By a mark on the finger."

"Ah! what sort of a mark?"

"A peculiar scar like a triangle, situated between the first and second joints. Besides that, the nail had once been crushed, after which it was never perfect."

"That was quite enough," nodded Professor Scotch.

"Yah," agreed Hans; "dot peen quide enough alretty."

Still Frank was silent, watching and waiting, missing not a word that fell from the man's lips, missing not a gesture, failing to note no move.

This silence on the part of Merriwell seemed to affect the man, who turned to him, saying, a trifle sharply:

"Boy, boy, have you no sympathy with me? Think of the suffering I have pa.s.sed through! You should pity me."

"What are you trying to do now?" asked Frank, quietly.

"I am trying to raise some money to ransom my son."

"But I thought you did raise money?"

"So I did, but not enough."

"Finish the story."

"Well, when I received that letter I immediately hastened to this land of bandits and half-breeds. I did not have three thousand dollars, but I hoped that what I had would be enough to soften Pacheco's heart--to save my poor boy."

"And you failed?"

The old man groaned again.

"My boy is still in Pacheco's power, and I have not a dollar left in all the world! Failed--miserably failed!"

"Well, what do you hope to do--what are you trying to do?"

"Raise five hundred dollars."

"How?"

"In any way."

"By begging?"

"I do not know how. Anyway, anyway will do!"

"But you cannot raise it by begging in this land, man," said the professor. "This is a land of beggars. Everybody seems to be poor and wretched."

"But I have found some of my own countrymen, and I hoped that you might have pity on me--oh, I did hope!"

"What? You didn't expect us to give you five hundred dollars?"

"Think of my boy--my poor boy! Pacheco has threatened to murder him by inches--to cut him up and send him to me in pieces! Is it not something terrible to contemplate?"

"Vell, I should d.i.n.k id vos!" gurgled the Dutch boy.

"But how did you lose your money?"

"I was robbed."

"By whom?"

"Pacheco."

"How did it happen?"

"I fell into his hands."