“I hope nothing more has happened here to harm you, Joe. Dr. Menter got home this evening, and upon hearing of my predicament he would not rest until he had seen me. Then he called ’Squire Hardy out of his bed, and demanded my release in such terms that I was given up. But he has come with us. Thank him, Joe, for what we owe to him.” Joe now saw that the genial doctor was present, and he stepped forward to grasp her hand. She also saw Larry, who was clasped in his mother’s arms. Besides these twain there were others present, whom she did not recognize in her joy, while she murmured her thanks to Dr. Menter for the kind assistance he had given Rob. “I am his debtor still,” replied the physician. “I am glad I got home as I did. I wish I had been here before, for I might have saved you much suffering.” Then Joe acted very queerly, as it seemed to the others, for she suddenly sprang back, exclaiming: “Oh, the man in the cellar. I forgot him. You must go to his help, Rob, with a rope.” In a few hurried words she explained the startling _tableau_ being enacted below them, when Rob and the men with him started to see what could be done, while the women stood all together in a group, half in tears and half in fright over the strange situation. No change had taken place in the cellar, for the unknown man held his victims so at bay not one dared to move. The lantern had dropped from the hand of the man called Bill, but it had not been extinguished. “They are a string of precious scamps on whose heads there is a good price set. Tie them fast and firm.” Willing hands did this, and though the baffled outlaws raved and cursed, begged and implored, they were soon prisoners. “We came in the nick of time,” said Dr. Menter, “and though I do not fully understand what this move means, I feel certain it is going to work in your favor, Robert. Ha! what means this skeleton here in the ground? I believe we are about to get at the mystery of the old red house.” “You are,” said the stranger, who had put aside his revolvers, and having brushed the dirt from his clothes, appeared before the rest a fine specimen of manhood. “I think I can give you the key. But let us go above, as I have matters of closer interest to me that I want to speak of first. “Rob, though you have grown so I should not have recognized you if your name had not been spoken, I am Gideon Bayne, your father!” CHAPTER XXX. THE TRIUMPH OF RIGHT. It was not until he had been folded in the arms of his new-found father that Little Hickory could realize the truth of what had been spoken. They had reached the floor now, and his mother stood close beside them, while the others stood apart, silent but appreciative spectators.