excitedly. "Oh, the monster--the demon!"

He wrung his hands, and groaned as if with great anguish.

"Be calm, be calm," urged Professor Scotch. "My dear sir, you are
working yourself into a dreadful state."

"How can I be calm?" groaned the stranger. "It is not possible to be
calm and think of such a terrible thing!"

"What terrible thing?" asked Frank. "You have not told the entire story,
and we do not know what you mean."

"True, true. Listen! With that letter Pacheco--the monster!--sent one of
my boy's little fingers!"

"Shimminy Gristmas! I don'd toldt you dot, do I?"

"Horrible! horrible!"

The professor and Hans uttered these exclamations, but Frank was calm
and apparently unmoved, with his eyes still fastened on the face of the
old man.

"How you toldt dot vos der finger uf your son, mister?"

"That's it, that's it--how could you tell?" asked the professor.

"My son--my own boy--he added a line to the letter, stating that the
finger had been taken from his left hand, and that Pacheco threatened to
cut off his fingers one by one and send them to me if I did not hasten
with the ransom money."

"Dot seddled you!"

"You recognized the handwriting as that of your son?"

"I did; but I recognized something besides that."

"What?"

"The finger."

"Oh, you may have been mistaken in that--surely you may."

"I was not."

"How do you know?"

"By a mark on the finger."

"Ah! what sort of a mark?"

"A peculiar scar like a triangle, situated between the first and second
joints. Besides that, the nail had once been crushed, after which it was
never perfect."

"That was quite enough," nodded Professor Scotch.

"Yah," agreed Hans; "dot peen quide enough alretty."

Still Frank was silent, watching and waiting, missing not a word that
fell from the man's lips, missing not a gesture, failing to note no
move.

This silence on the part of Merriwell seemed to affect the man, who
turned to him, saying, a trifle sharply:

"Boy, boy, have you no sympathy with me? Think of the suffering I have
passed through! You should pity me."

"What are you trying to do now?" asked Frank, quietly.

"I am trying to raise some money to ransom my son."

"But I thought you did raise money?"

"So I did, but not enough."

"Finish the story."

"Well, when I received that letter I immediately hastened to this land
of bandits and half-breeds. I did not have three thousand dollars, but I
hoped that what I had would b