"I reckon you'll have to git up," announced Jim Hunter, putting a helping hand under one of Dalton's arms.

"I can't--oh, stop! Let up! My foot's crushed. I can't stand on it!"

yelled Dalton.

Hunter came quickly to realize the fact that Dalton could not stand with much comfort. Joe came up with a chair, onto which the prisoner was allowed to sink.

"Oh, you boys think you've finished things for me, don't you?" leered Dalton, glaring around him in a rage. "But you haven't. You'll soon find that you've just begun to stir up trouble for yourselves."

"Go easy, man--do!" begged Hunter, soothingly. "Of course yer pet corn feels bad just now. But, say! That's the niftiest way of stopping a bad man, I reckon, thet was ever invented."

"Is it?" groaned Dalton. Then, catching the trace of a smirk in Hank's eyes, the rascal shook his fist at the steward of the "Restless,"

snarling:

"I'll find my own way to settle with you!"

"Take your time--when you're feeling better," Hank begged, cheerfully.

Fair-haired, soft-voiced young Dawley had followed the crowd out into the corridor. The hotel clerk, the proprietor and three or four of the servants all had increased the crowd there. Dawley rapidly learned what had happened.

"It's a beastly outrage," he announced, his soft voice sounding almost harsh in the indignation that he felt.

"Oh, take a fan, Dolly, and go out on the porch to cool off," growled Joe Dawson.

One of the servants, in the excess of excitement, actually took the fair-haired youth by the shoulders, and, though the latter protested, thrust him out through the open door onto the porch, slamming the door after him.

"That's too bad," grinned Hank. "I'll go out and see if the poor fellow has fainted."

As b.u.t.ts stepped out on the porch, closing the door shut after him, Dawley, his cheeks very red, leaped out from the chair into which he had sunk.

"It was you who played that mean trick on my friend," cried Dawley, in a voice which he fondly believed trembled with rage.

"Yes," admitted Hank, meekly.

"I'll punish you for that!" quivered the soft-voiced one, stepping forward.

"Don't strike me on the wrist," pleaded Hank. "I have rheumatism there."

But Dawley, too angry, or else too dull to understand that he was being made a mark for ridicule, continued to advance upon b.u.t.ts, who retreated, a look of mock alarm in his face.

"Keep away from me--please do, while you're angry," begged Hank, still retreating.

"I won't!" snapped Dawley. As Hank now retreated rapidly backward, Dawley went after him with corresponding speed.

"If you must have it, then, why--take it!" cried Hank, in a tone of desperation.

One of his hands had been held under his rain-coat all along. Now Hank thrust the other hand inside, as well, to reach for some object concealed there.

"Oh. O-o-oh! Don't you drop that weight on my foot!" yelled Dawley, blanching and falling up against the wooden wall.

But Hank, ruthlessly, as one whose blood is up, brought both his hands swiftly into view as he sprang at Dawley. There was a yell from the fair-haired one as Hank bent forward, then dropped squarely on the toes of Dawley's right foot--his _pocket-handkerchief_!

"There, now!" mimicked Hank b.u.t.ts, turning on his heel.

A roar of laughter came from Mr. Seaton, Tom, Joe and two or three of the bystanders who had followed outside.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

"I'm sorry, young man," said Powell Seaton, resting a hand on Dawley's collar, "but the chief of police wants to see you."

"I'm not arrested, am I?" demanded the soft-voiced one, in a tone of great alarm.

"I think not. But come along. The chief wants to see you in the office."

There they found Hunter and his manacled prisoner, who had been carried into the office just as he sat on the chair.

"Where's that red bag that started all the trouble?" demanded Chief Hunter. Joe Dawson produced it.

"You can't open that," leered Dalton, though he spoke uneasily.

"If we can't unlock it, we'll cut it open with a sharp breadknife,"

mocked Hunter. "Yet I reckon thet we'll find the key in yer pocket."

This guess turned out to be correct. The key was inserted in the lock and the bag opened. Powell Seaton pushed forward to help the police official in the inspection of the contents.

"There are my papers," cried Powell Seaton, grabbing at two envelopes.

"Look 'em over, ef you want, but I reckon I'll haveter have 'em to go with the prisoner," a.s.sented Chief Hunter.

"They're the same papers that this fellow stole--one set from Clodis, and the other from my bungalow through a helper," cried Mr. Seaton.

Anson Dalton watched Seaton with a strange, sinister look.

"Gracious! Look at these, here!" gasped Chief Hunter, opening a small leather case. Nearly a score of flashing white stones greeted his eyes.

"Di'munds, I reckon," guessed the police chief.

"Yes; Brazilian diamonds," confirmed Powell Seaton. "Probably this prisoner's share or proceeds from smuggling in diamonds. That business, then, was what the 'Black Betty' was used for."

"Those are the diamonds I came down here to negotiate for," broke in Dawley, wonderingly.

"You?" demanded Hunter, surveying the soft-voiced one.

"Yes; my father is Dawley, the big jeweler at Jacksonville," explained the youth. "Here's his card. I'm the buyer for the house, and your prisoner wrote that he had some fine stones to sell."