Stop Thief!

Far away, in a distant land called Sirine, lived a young lad of nineteen named Ronald Milton. He lived alone with his father in a small log cabin in the mountains. Major Milton, who was a former army officer, often was out hunting, so Ronald rarely saw him.

Once a year they traveled down to one of the villages to get supplies, it was several days journey.

One day, when they reached the village, Major Milton, leaving Ronald in the town square, went off to attend to some business.

Ronald was standing there, watching the vendors sell their wares, when a soldier came up and nailed a notice up to the town hall. After he had left, a crowd gathered around it.

Pushing through the crowd, Ronald read the notice, which said:

His Majesty, King Arthur has proclaimed the requirements for suitors of his daughter’s hand.

To marry the Princess Kayleen you must:

Be kind and gentle.

Have a good reputation.

Final requirement: Climb the mountain Shiro and bring back the treasure of the ancient Shironian Indians.

When the crowd read this, they gasped. There was a tale that the ancient Shironian Indians had buried their treasure at the top of the mountain. Many people had tried to climb the mountain, but they were never seen again.

The Shironian Indians were not in existence any longer, and they, as far as most people could tell, had left no clue as to the location of the treasure.

, how could someone not only climb it, but bring back the treasure too?

Ronald had read the article with interest, he had heard how kind King Arthur was and he had wondered what the requirements would be.

He was amazed at how hard the requirements were, but he knew why; the Princess was an only child. If your only child was a girl, you naturally wanted a good son-in-law. But it was none of his business, so he wandered on.

As he walked he passed some shops. Suddenly, he heard someone yelling, “Stop thief! Stop thief! Those men stole my money!” Looking up he saw three men come running out of one of the shops. Ronald began running after the three men. Ronald had always been a good runner, and he soon saw that he was gaining on them. They saw it too. Ronald noticed one of the men; he looked like the leader, saying something to the other two. Abruptly they halted. Ronald was running so fast that he couldn’t stop, and he ran right into their arms. One knocked him on the head with a gun and then, after tying and gagging him, they dragged him off into the forest.

After about an hour, Ronald woke up. But he didn’t feel well enough to walk, so he pretended to still be asleep.

Several minutes later they halted. Ronald was carelessly dumped on the ground.

“Get up.” The leader snarled.

Ronald slowly began to get up, he was still dizzy. The leader leaned over and jerked Ronald to his feet. Ronald swayed for a moment, gaining his balance.

As the three men stood looking at him, he felt the lump on his head. He winced when his hand touched it. When he drew back his hand, it had blood on it. “Well, what are you going to do with me?” asked Ronald.

The three men glanced at each other, and then the other two looked at the leader. They began talking in low tones.

Ronald looked about for somewhere to escape to, and then he noticed that the leader was still watching him.

After a couple of minutes, the leader came over to him. “What’s your name, boy?” he growled.

“Why don’t you tell me your name first? Then maybe I’ll tell you mine.” Ronald replied.

The leader’s hand flew out and he slapped Ronald across the face. Ronald was knocked down by the force of the blow. “That’s what you get for being impertinent. Next time it’ll be worse.” the leader said, glaring fiercely at Ronald.

Ronald glanced around and decided that it would be best to do as the thief said to. “My name is Ronald Milton.” Ronald said, trying to control his temper.

“That’s more like it.” the leader said, “You can call me Mike. These two are Ovie and Pat.”

Then Mike turned to Ovie and Pat and yelled, “Come on, you two! Pack up the stuff and let’s get moving before someone gets a law officer on our trail.”

Ovie and Pat obeyed quickly, and soon everything was gathered up. Then the two of them swung the big bags of stuff onto their shoulders. Mike untied Ronald’s arms and shoved a bag at him, and said, “Here, carry this, and don’t try to escape, I’ve got my eye on you, and my gun.” he added.

The man pulled out a cruel looking gun and pointed it in the direction of Ronald. The group started off, Mike keeping his gun on Ronald.

They marched until the sun began to go down.

Ronald was feeling very sore and tired. In the last several hours he had been hit quite hard on the head, had been slapped violently across the face and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Finally they stopped and set up camp. After eating some cold beans, all of them but Mike laid down to sleep.

Ronald lay awake for a while, he wondered if his father was worried about him. His father did not see or talk to Ronald very often, but they still loved each other. Ronald fell asleep.

End of Chapter One

(This is the story I wrote when I was 12-13 years-old. It is unedited, but I'm sure that you can ignore that. :) This is the sequel to Death In Three Weeks!, my other book on The Prose, and is in the same continent as An Everlasting Hope. I hope you enjoy it very much! If you are not being tagged when new chapters come out, and would like to be, let me know!)

(P.S. By the way, the cover art for this book is the map I drew of the continent all my books are situated in. :P)