"I mean how would you invest it here? How would you expect it to be secured at the ranch?"
"Oh, I don't know. I don't care much. That could be fixed in any way, just so the Colonel was all right."
"Well, what's the use of talking? You haven't got it," grumbled Frank Moore.
"I know it!" cried Ken. "If we only had more time! I suppose it would take ten days, anyway, even if we wired."
"You could realize in ten days? Your property is in securities?" struck in Corbell keenly.
"Yes," replied Kenneth to both questions.
"And you'd do it?"
"Of course I would. But we haven't got but four days."
Corbell turned to big Bill Hunter.
"Here's where you have your innings, old hippopotamus," he said. "No, listen," he commanded, as the others started to speak. "I think we can pull this off. Ken will send for his money: that makes half. We'll get busy at the banks and raise what we can. That leaves only about thirty thousand dollars shy. Hell! We'll either raise that, somehow, or leave it."
"But we've only got four days," objected Frank Moore.
"We've got until Patrick Boyd goes down to complete the transaction."
"Well, he'll be there on the minute" began Bill Hunter; but the quicker-witted practical joker in Frank Moore caught the point.
"Kipnap him!" he cried. "Great! That's where you come in, Bill."
"And hold him nice and safe and peaceful and mad until we've completed the deal and got the thing tied down," added Corbell.
"The bank has voted to sell to Boyd," interposed Ravenscroft, with one of his common-sense flashes. "Suppose it will not sell to us?"
"It will to Kenneth, if he works it right. They can be gently led to believe he's acting for his father."
"Will you do that, old man?" asked Ravenscroft.
"I suppose so," said Kenneth, miserably. "If it's the only way."
