The rest of the day was spent in picking shot out of Farley, and by evening he was relieved of the last one.

"We'll put him in that empty room at the corner of the house, and take turns watching him through the night," said Ted.

Until bedtime Farley sat in the living room with the rest of them, and they were unusually guarded in their conversation.

When it came time to retire Farley was conducted to the room which was to be his prison, and it fell to Carl to take the first watch, and to call Ben at one o'clock.

In the room there was a lounge and a pair of blankets for Farley, a table and a lamp, and a chair for the watch.

"Whatever you do, don't go to sleep, Carl," said Ted. "The reason I'm putting you on the first watch is because you're such a sleepyhead."

"Don'd vorry aboud me," said Carl, with a yawn. "I pet you I vas der sleepinglessness feller in der whole bunch. If he gets avay on my vatch it vill not be pecause I don'd sleep."

"I guess you mean all right, but I swear I can't understand you. Only keep awake."

"Oh, yah; I avake keeping all der time."

Carl sat in the chair watching his prisoner, and soon saw Farley's chest heaving regularly and heard his deep breathing as he slept. Then things seemed to waver and fade away.

Carl started up at hearing some one beating on the door, and sat rubbing his eyes. It was broad daylight.

"All right, I'll get up pooty soon yet. Is preakfast retty?"

"Here, open the door. This is Ted."

"Vait a minute."

Carl staggered sleepily to the door and unlocked it.

"Where is your prisoner?" asked Ted, stalking into the room, and looking at the open window.

"My vat? Ach, Gott in himmel, vat haf I dided? I am schoost coming avake. He iss gone! I haf slept on vatch. I am foreffer disgraced. Kill me, Ted! I haf no appet.i.te to live any more alretty," cried Carl.

Ted had been angry at discovering the escape of Farley, for he had conceived a plan to use him against Creviss. He had risen early, and when he found that all the boys were in bed except Carl, he immediately suspected the truth.

But Carl's despairing manner turned him from anger.

"Never mind, Carl," he said. "It was my fault for putting you on watch.

You were not cut out for a watchman. Or, perhaps, you were, according to the funny papers, but not of prisoners."

During breakfast Carl was compelled to endure the jokes of the boys at his failure to guard the prisoner, which he did with a lugubrious countenance; then, at a signal from Ted, the subject was dropped.

About ten o'clock Billy Sudden rode up to the ranch house.

There was something in his manner that betokened news of importance, and he strode unbidden into the living room, where Ted was sitting at his desk.

"Where's the kid?" he asked abruptly.

"Who, Farley?" asked Ted, looking up from his work.

"Yes."

"Skipped."

"What?"

"I said skipped."

"Great Scott! I'd give a hundred dollars if he hadn't."

"Why?"

"What time did he get away?"

"Don't know, exactly. Carl was watching him, but he fell asleep almost as soon as they were in the room together, and didn't wake up until six o'clock this morning, and Farley was gone. No one knows how he got away or at what time. It might have been any time. He probably woke up in the night and saw that Carl was dead to the world, and opened the window, dropped to the ground, and hit the trail. That's all I know about it.

But what makes you so anxious about it?"

"Then you haven't heard the news?"

"Guess not. What is it?"

"The First National Bank was robbed last night."

"Great guns! Creviss' bank! That's the United States depository!"

"The same."

"What are the details?"

"I rode through town this morning on my way over here to see if being confined for the night wouldn't make the kid talk, when I saw a bunch of men standing in front of the bank. I b.u.t.ted in and asked what the excitement was, and they told me that the bank had been robbed."

"But how?"

"That's what n.o.body knows. When the cashier, Mr. Henson, got to the bank this morning everything apparently was all right. The doors and windows were fastened, and there was no sign anywhere that the bank had been forcibly entered. Of course, he didn't look at these things first. He went to the vault and opened it at the proper time and examined its contents casually. Everything seemed to be as usual. But when, a few minutes later, he went to get out the currency, it was all gone. He hadn't counted up when I left there, so no one knows the exact amount, but it was large."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BATTLE WITH THE BULL.

The excitement incident to the mysterious robbery of the Creviss bank was intense.

How had it been done? This was the question that every one was asking his neighbor. But none could answer it.

The evening before the robbery had taken place the bank had been closed by the cashier, and by Mr. Creviss himself.