CHAPTER VI.

THE EAGLES LEAD THE WAY TO SUCCESS.

"Don't shoot, gents! I reckon I'm pretty near all in!" called out the man who was in the crotch of the oak tree.

At the same time he elevated both hands as a sign that he was unarmed and did not intend to offer any hostile demonstration. Undoubtedly the sight of the three big officers in blue, not to speak of four stalwart lads dressed in scout uniforms, must have convinced him that he had really run to the end of his rope; and that after being checked so positively in his break for liberty, the next best thing for him to do would be to give in and have his wounded leg attended to.

"h.e.l.lo! got you, have we, Con?" remarked the Chief pleasantly.

"Looks like it, Chief," grunted the man, who must have been in considerable pain, Rob determined, as he saw the drawn look on his face.

"Just gimme half a chance, and I'll drop down out of this. It ain't the easiest thing agoin' for a man with a leg swollen up like mine to move, once he sets still five minutes."

"That's so, Con," the head of the Hampton police force said, as he stepped forward; "and I'll help you down all I can."

If Rob had had a good opinion of the burly Chief before, that added to it; because his consideration for a suffering wretch, even if he were a hard character, proved that the policeman had a heart.

The fugitive was helped to the ground, and he sank down with a half stifled groan. They could see that his face had a peaked look, and that he was compelled to grit his teeth savagely together, as though trying his best not to show signs of weakness. Yes, Con was a man of more than ordinary nerve and grit, Rob knew, as he noticed all this; but then he had made up his mind on that score before now, so he was not at all surprised.

"Corporal Merritt," he said, turning to his second in command; "suppose you take a look at this poor fellow's leg, and see if you can't do something in an emergency to ease the pain. Like as not we'll have to make a stretcher and carry him to where the wagon was left."

"All right, Rob!" was the ready answer Merritt gave; while his eyes fairly sparkled with satisfaction at having the patrol leader show such confidence in him as to turn over this duty to his charge. As a rule Rob generally took it upon himself to play the part of doctor when an occasion arose that required such work.

And imagine the astonishment of those three policemen as they saw the corporal immediately set to work to tackle his job with the a.s.surance of an experienced physician or surgeon. As for the injured man, he stared as though hardly knowing what to believe, to see a mere boy undertake a task like that.

Tubby gave one look as Merritt unwound the rough bandage that the wounded man had wrapped tightly around his injured leg, and gasped as he turned his head away. Andy kept on staring as though fascinated; but at the same time had any one observed the boy closely he would have found that Andy's usual healthy color had given place to a ghastly hue.

If Merritt experienced anything of the same feeling as he proceeded to manipulate the limb of the man, he certainly did not let the weakness interfere with his work.

"I may hurt you some, but stand it as well as you can," he told the other. "Because I have an idea the leg may not be broken after all, but only badly wrenched and torn by striking some hard object. Steady, now!"

A minute later, as boys and officers stared, and mentally gave Merritt credit for knowing all about "first aid to the injured," the corporal went on to say:

"It is just as I thought, for there is no fracture of the bones that I can find. But you have neglected it so long and strained it so by walking and running that I'm afraid you're going to have a bad time with that leg. But I'll put something on that will ease the pain, more or less, and bind it up fresh for you. Then we'll get you to the wagon somehow, without your having to walk."

"Say, are you what they call the Boy Scouts?" asked the injured man, who had been listening to all Merritt said, as well as watching his deft fingers work, with amazement written large upon his peaked face.

"Just what we are," Tubby hastened to inform him; "and you can see now what the scouts learn. You are not the first man who has been handled by the members of the Eagle Patrol, Mister."

"Well, I wanted to know!" muttered the man, still staring, as though he could not understand how mere boys could master the art of handling a bad wound like that with such skill, and show the nerve to do it at the same time.

"Where's Rob going?" asked Tubby just then.

While Merritt was working Rob had held the torch so that he could see, until Andy had taken a hint, and sc.r.a.ped enough dead leaves together to make a little fire, and in this way given all the light that was needed.

Apparently the patrol leader was not satisfied with having overtaken one of the desperate fugitives who had escaped from the Riverhead jail. He must have figured, while standing there, waiting until the fire had attained sufficient size to allow his moving off, that possibly the other rascal might not have run much further, as they would surely have caught the sound of his pressing through all that dense undergrowth; for at the time Con was helped up into his tree by the shorter man, the pursuers could not have been far away.

And so the scout who carried that useful electric hand torch proceeded to find the tracks of the second man; after which he began to follow the trail.

It immediately led him into the thickest of the underbrush; and this fact only added strength to the boy's former deduction, to the effect that no one could push on through all this matted growth without making all sorts of sounds capable of being readily heard by keen ears a quarter of a mile away almost.

Merritt had now finished bandaging the wounded leg of the man, and the fellow frankly told him it was feeling many times better already.

"You're a sure enough wonder, boy, that's what!" the man went on to say; and while he did not thank the amateur surgeon in so many words, Merritt could easily trace grat.i.tude in the tone of his voice. However, the young corporal was not doing this in order to receive praise, but because it lay in the line of his duty as a scout.

"Got one man, anyway, Chief, didn't you?" Andy remarked.

"Half a loaf, they say, is some better than no bread," answered the big man, chuckling, as though vastly amused over the result of this singular hunt in company with the Boy Scouts.

Before he could say anything more, there arose a series of loud "k-r-e-e-es" from the direction where the patrol leader had gone a minute or two before.

"That's Rob!" cried Tubby, all in a tremor at the thought of new developments coming on the carpet.

"And he wants us to come along!" added Andy. "Listen! There's somebody else calling out, too, and it's a gruff voice, boys. I wonder, now, if Rob's cornered the other runaway in a tree, too. Let's hurry on and see!"

They were soon all in motion, leaving the wounded man alone by the little fire, since in all probability he would never dream of attempting further flight. And Merritt did not feel like being cheated out of his share of the fun in order to stand by and watch one who was really the prisoner of the Chief.

They had little difficulty in knowing which way to move, for the racket still kept up ahead. It was found to be pretty hard work pushing through all that dense ma.s.s of ground vines, bushes, and closely growing dwarf oaks, whose branches caught Tubby several times and almost choked him.

Once he did actually find himself gripped by the throat by one of these lower limbs, and lifted off his feet for the s.p.a.ce of three seconds; so that ever afterward Tubby was fond of saying that he knew from actual experience just how Absalom must have felt when he was caught by his long hair and left hanging in a tree.

"Rob, oh, Rob, where are you?" called Andy, as they drew nearer to the strange sounds, which, besides spoken words, seemed to consist of the swishing of hurtling stones or clubs, and jeering laughter, all so queer that the scouts could make little or nothing of them.

For answer there was a flash, as Rob turned his torch toward them for just the s.p.a.ce of a second; and at the same time he was heard calling close at hand:

"Here I am, just ahead of you, boys! Better look out or you'll get hit!"

"But what in the wide world is going on, Rob?" demanded Merritt, as he heard some object strike with a heavy thud among the bushes not two feet away from him.

"I'll show you what it means!" laughed Rob, who it turned out was hiding back of a fairly large tree-trunk not five feet away. As he spoke he sent the white light of his torch straight ahead once more.

What they saw astonished them. A moving figure caught their attention, and no explanation was needed to tell the boys that this must be the shorter one of the precious pair of rogues who had broken jail, and given the authorities of Suffolk and adjoining counties such a scare.

He seemed to be groping all around him, as though trying to find more stones or fragments of broken limbs with which to bombard the patrol leader, whose presence was betrayed by the flash of his torch.

"What's he doing there; and why does he lean over like that?" called out Tubby, at the same time dodging behind a convenient tree, when he saw the man proceed to hurl a stone in their direction, following it up with a stream of hard words that told how furious he felt.

"Why, the fact is," said Rob, still laughing, as though he considered it a good joke on the fugitive, "that he got himself in the neatest trap you ever saw. In the dark and his hurry he pushed his foot into some sort of frog made of the roots of a bush, and after that got so twisted up in the vines that if he was promised a thousand dollars for doing it, he just couldn't break away. I flashed the light on him, you see, where he was lying low, hoping we'd clear out and let him get away; and he was so mad he began to fire everything he could lay hands on at me. There's your second man, Chief. I'll hand over the job of taking him to you."

"Well, I wouldn't be afraid to wager you could do it as clever as the next one if it was up to you, son!" remarked the big officer, as he started toward the spot where the baffled fugitive crouched, looking about as furious and ugly as any one could who had been tripped up in this neat manner by ill fortune.

Of course the fellow saw that the game was up. He did not dare to offer any resistance when the Chief walked up to him and ordered him to hold out his hands. And when there came a sharp "click" that made Tubby wince, they knew that the fugitive from justice had been retaken, and that he stood a fair chance to face a judge and jury before many days.

It required considerable labor to get him free from the trap that Nature had so cruelly sprung upon him, but in the end this was accomplished; and upon returning to where the little fire still burned, they found the wounded man lying there on the ground, as comfortably as he could, and awaiting them with an expectant look on his face.