Part 24 (1/2)
”I wish I knew,” returned the colonel ”If there were any birds around here big enough we ht suspect that one of them had carried him off, but ill evidently have to await Pepper's own explanation of the enigma” Then he added after a ot to the end of the trail I don't knohat to do next”
”That reminds me,” started dick, when there was a hiss, a snarl and a flash through the air fro, and an i, landed on dick's back
”Help! Murder!” shouted dick ”Take it off!”
For an instant the boys were so dumfounded by the suddenness of the attack that they all jumped in different directions, but the colonel, with a well-directed blow from the heavy stick he carried, knocked the animal off of dick, but not before his coat had been torn and dick hi the cat now crouched, facing the colonel, and see
”Knock him over the head!” shouted Donald ”Hit it in the head with a stone,” looking about for a weapon
”Look out!” called Rand, ”givefly an arrohich pierced the ani, when Gerald added a blow from a well-directed stone With a wild screaround
”Look out, Rand!” cautioned dick, creeping back froained his feet, as Rand went up to where the cat was lying ”Take care it don't spring on you!”
”No danger,” replied Rand: ”it's dead”
”Faith, thin, Oi w'udn't trust it, dead or alive,” said Gerald
”That was a good shot, Rand,” coroild cat is an enereed dick ”Ugh! I feel as if I had been scraped with a curry-coet a job somewhere as a scarecrow?”
”But what has become of Pepper?” asked Don
”That is the puzzle that we have got to solve,” replied the colonel
”For the present the only thing we can do is to go back to Creston and see if we can't pick up some new clues”
The boys, with Colonel Snow, slowlywith them the body of the cat, the skin of which Rand proposed to have tanned for a trophy for the club rooan, who put his hand on Rand's shoulder
”I have a warrant for your arrest,” he said
The party were amazed, and the colonel was the first to speak
”For what?” he asked
”For robbing Judge Taylor's office,” replied the officer
CHAPTER XVII
THE MESSAGE