"Yet a thousand dollars is---a thousand dollars!" Dick couldn't help feeling, wistfully, as he piloted his party across fields and through the woods. "A thousand dollars! Five hundred apiece for Dave and me! What a fearful big lot of money! What we could do with it, If we had it! I wonder whether it would be right and decent to take it?" Then, as he neared the place where he had left his chum on post Dick Prescott found other and anxious thoughts crowding into his mind. Was Dave Darrin, staunch and reliable Dave---still there, on post, and unharmed? Was Theodore Dodge there? Were his captors still with him? CHAPTER VI THE SMALL SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN A few minutes later all fears and doubts were dispelled. Dave Darrin rose to greet the newcomers informing them, in a whisper, that all was still well in the old shanty below. He of the brogans and club heard a slight noise outside. Swiftly he rose and darted to the door, ready to pounce. But he beheld the policemen, with the newspaper trio just behind them. More, Chief Coy and his subordinates had their revolvers drawn. "Howdy, gents?" was Mr. Brogans' greeting as he dropped his club and tried to grin. "Take care of him, Hemingway," directed Thief Coy, briefly. "Me?" demanded Brogans, in feigned astonishment. "What have _I_ done?" The noise roused Bill, who sprang up. But Bill must have found the police wonderfully soothing, for he quieted down at once. Both rascals were taken care of. Then Theodore Dodge was found lying bound and gagged on the floor. A ragged, foul-smelling coat had been substituted for the one that had been left at the river's bank. The banker looked up at the intruders with a stupefied leer, betraying neither alarm or pleasure. As soon as the two rough-looking fellows had been handcuffed Mr. Dodge was freed, and his tongue also, but Chief Coy, after raising the banker and questioning him, muttered: "Clean out of his head. Daffy. Must have wandered away from Gridley during a loony streak. He isn't over it yet." The two rough-looking ones protested loudly against being deprived of their liberty. "I don't really know that you fellows have done anything," admitted Chief Coy. "But I'm taking you along on suspicion that it was you, and not Mr. Dodge himself, who bound and gagged him." This retort, given with a great deal of dry sarcasm, silenced the prisoners for the time being. "We ought to have this out an hour before 'The Evening Mail' people," exulted Editor Pollock. "Prescott, my boy, you're a born reporter! And, Darrin, you're not much behind." "Theodore Dodge found by two "Blade" reporters! That won't sound bad!" The briefest questioning was enough to show that Theodore Dodge was in no condition to give any account of himself. He did not reply with an intelligible word. His eyes held only a vacant stare. It was as though memory and reason had suddenly snapped within his brain.