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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 be enough to soften Pacheco's heart—to save my poor boy."

      "And you failed?"

      The old man groaned again.

      "My boy is still in Pacheco's power, and I have not a dollar left in all the world! Failed—miserably failed!"

      "Well, what do you hope to do—what are you trying to do?"

      "Raise five hundred dollars."

      "How?"

      "In any way."

      "By begging?"

      "I do not know how. Anyway, anyway will do!"

      "But you cannot raise it by begging in this land, man," said the professor. "This is a land of beggars. Everybody seems to be poor and wretched."

      "But I have found some of my own countrymen, and I hoped that you might have pity on me—oh, I did hope!"

      "What? You didn't expect us to give you five hundred dollars?"

      "Think of my boy—my poor boy! Pacheco has threatened to murder him by inches—to cut him up and send him to me in pieces! Is it not something terrible to contemplate?"

      "Vell, I should dink id vos!" gurgled the Dutch boy.

      "But how did you lose your money?"

      "I was robbed."

      "By whom?"

      "Pacheco."

      "How did it happen?"

      "I fell into his hands."

      "And he took your money without setting your son free?"

      "He did."

      "Did you tell him it was all you had in the world?"

      "I told him that a score of times."

      "What did he say?"

      "Told me to raise more, or have the pleasure of receiving my boy in pieces."

      "How long ago was that?"

      "Three days."

      "Near here?"

      "Yes."

      "How long have you been in Mendoza?"

      "Two days, and during that time I have received this from Pacheco."

      He took something from his pocket—something wrapped in a handkerchief. With trembling fingers, he unrolled it, exposing to view——

      A bloody human finger!

      CHAPTER IV.

       UNMASKED

       Table of Contents

      Hans and Professor Scotch uttered exclamations of horror, starting back from the sight revealed by the light that came from the window set deep in the adobe wall.

      Frank's teeth came together with a peculiar click, but he uttered no exclamation, nor did he start.

      This seemed to affect the old man unpleasantly, for he turned on Frank, crying in an accusing manner and tone:

      "Have you no heart? Are you made of stone?"

      "Hardly," was the reply.

      "This finger—it is the second torn from the hand of my boy by Pacheco, the bandit—Pacheco, the monster!"

      "Pacheco seems to be a man of great determination."

      Professor Scotch gazed at Frank in astonishment, for the boy was of a very sympathetic and kindly nature, and he now seemed quite unlike his usual self.

      "Frank, Frank, think of the suffering of this poor father!"

      "Yah," murmured Hans; "shust dink how pad you vould felt uf you efer peen py his blace," put in Hans, sobbing, chokingly.

      "It is very, very sad," said Frank; but there seemed to be a singularly sarcastic ring to the words which fell from his lips.

      "Have you seen your son since he fell into the hands of Pacheco, sir?" asked the professor.

      "Yes, I saw him; but I could scarcely recognize him, he was so changed—so wan and ghastly. The skin is drawn tightly over his bones, and he looks as if he were nearly starved to death."

      "Did he recognize you?"

      "Yes."

      "What did he do?"

      The man wrung his hands with a gesture of unutterable anguish.

      "Oh, his appeal—I can hear it now! He begged me to save him, or to give him poison that he might kill himself!"

      "Where is he now?"

      "In

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