Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/97

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ROWE SHELLY, THE RUNAWAY.
89

somehow I always got switched off on another track. You know it now, and if you remain shut up any longer deprived of your rights, it will be your own fault."

"I shall not let the grass grow under my feet, I assure you," said Rowe, seating himself at the table and once more taking up his pen. "I shall not leave the city until this thing has been settled. How would it do to add a line to the letter I have written to Willis?"

"Telling him what you intend to do?" exclaimed Joe. "I wouldn't. Spring it on 'em and take them by surprise before they have a chance to run away with any of the money. If the man who claims to be your uncle got his position by fraud, he wouldn't be above cheating you if he saw an opportunity to do it without detection."

It was much harder work for Rowe to write this letter than it was to write the first, because he was so nervous and excited that he could scarcely hold his pen steady. But he finished it at last, and handed it over to Joe to read. It was much the same as the other, ex-