Mr. Oliver smiled understandingly. "That's sensible. There's nothing as good as your regular work for cooling you off and helping you to get calm again; but if you like you can take a note over to Webster and you needn't hurry back if he asks you to have dinner with him. Then there are two or three stumps you may as well grub out." They set out soon afterward and Frank, for one, was glad of the walk. He had been cramped on board the sloop, and the excitement of the last few days had told on him. He was nervously restless and felt that it would be useless to lie down until he was physically worn out. When he mentioned it to Harry the latter confessed to a similar sensation, and added that they had not yet finished with the dope men. Mr. Webster was at work in his clearing when they reached it, but he walked with them to his house, dropping Mr. Oliver's note into the stove as soon as he read it. "You'll have dinner before you go back and tell your father I'll come along," he said. "Would you like to take that single gun with you, Frank? Harry still has the other one." Frank said that he would be very glad, but his companion broke in: "What did dad ask you to come over for?" "He wasn't very precise," answered Mr. Webster evasively. "He'll probably tell me more when I'm at the ranch." As it was evident that he did not mean to be communicative, they ate their dinner without asking any further questions, but when they were walking home through the bush Harry smiled at his companion significantly. "What do you make of the whole thing?" he asked. "I don't know," said Frank. "Your father looked troubled when he heard the dope men had got away." "He did," assented Harry. "Then he sent over for Webster, who wouldn't tell us what he was wanted for, though he made you take that gun along." Frank knitted his brows. "Well," he said thoughtfully, "it's only an idea of mine, but it's possible that the fellows who escaped might make an attack upon the ranch out of revenge. Now if we allow that the schooner had been driving along before the wind for some time after she was abandoned--and several things pointed to it--one would fancy that the men who left her must have landed not very far from the spot where Barclay's men tried to seize them. It seems to me the first thing they'd do would be to attempt to join the rest so as to be strong enough to resist a posse sent out to hunt them down. It would be clear that somebody had given them away and they'd no doubt blame your father. Of course they suspected him already." "You've hit it," said Harry, whose face grew stern. "If they come along there'll be trouble, but we'll make some of it. I don't feel kind to the dope men after that sight in the schooner's cabin." Frank thought that his companion wore very much the same look as his father had done on the morning when he stood beside the fallen horse with the smoking pistol in his hand.