This seemed to be the opinion of all, including Mr. Perry, and a general move was made in the direction of the slowly retreating injured spy. They soon overtook him and threw a flood of illumination about him with their search-lights, which they had picked up in the dark almost as instinctively as a grandmother picks up her gla.s.ses in the morning.

"Why, he's a boy!"

Bud was the only one present who gave utterance to this discovery aloud, but the "exclamation" flashed mentally in the head of every other youthful investigator in the group. As Mr. Perry was not easily mystified, we must take it for granted that he was not easily astonished, so that probably he did not feel like giving vent to anything of the nature of an exclamation.

"Well," said the latter quietly; "we must take this youngster back to the camp and give him some hospital treatment. Can you walk?" he added, addressing the victim of Bud's slingshot.

"You don't think I'd be down here if I could, do you?" moaned the fellow sarcastically. "But just wait till I get over this and I'll fix the fellow that hit me."

"Let's not waste any time with him here," urged Mr. Perry. "Some of you boys pick him up carefully, so as not to hurt him, and carry him into the tent. We'll give him a quizzing there."

All the young members of the Catwhisker party had had first aid instruction, so that they knew how to lift the injured boy and carry him with a minimum of pain to the sufferer. A minute later the victim was lying on one of the cots in the tent, with his captors gathered around him, undoubtedly more concerned about the mystery of his presence than in the extent of his injuries.

"No, boys, we mustn't try to get his story from him until we take care of his wound and see to it that he is resting easy"; Mr. Perry interposed.

Accordingly the wound was examined and found to consist of a very bad bruise on the side of the right hip. Bud's missile had struck the intruder at a point where there was little flesh, right on a protruding ridge of the hip bone, and it was easy to see that the blow must have been very painful.

"I don't think it's very serious," Mr. Perry remarked after examining the wound; "but I doubt if this boy will want to be running around very much for several days. About all we can do is to apply some liniment to the wound and encourage it, by careful treatment, to heal as rapidly as possible."

A bottle of liniment was accordingly produced and an application administered by Mr. Perry. This seemed to ease the prisoner-patient somewhat, although he made no effort to stand up, or even to sit up.

"He may have a bone fracture," Mr. Perry remarked, after he had finished his first-aid ministration, "It's a pretty bad wound, after all. We'll have to take him to the nearest physician in the morning if he doesn't show decided improvement by that time. I didn't dare rub the liniment in because the slightest touch was so painful."

"The skin isn't broken," Bud observed, with a tone of real concern, for, in spite of the fact that the fellow was there on no friendly mission, the catapult "dead shot" now felt no exultation over his deed.

"No, or I could not have used the liniment," Mr. Perry replied. "His clothing protected him against a broken wound. By the way," he continued, turning to the victim, who lay on one of the camp cots that formed a part of the regular equipment of the Catwhisker; "who are you and what were you doing here?"

"Never you mind who I am or what I was doing here," snapped the youth, who appeared to be a few years older than the boy Catwhiskerites and their Canadian friend, Max. "You wait till my father gets after you.

He'll clean you all up."

"And who may your father be?" inquired Mr. Perry with provoking calmness.

"You'll find out who my father is, just you wait. You haven't any right here. These islands belong to my father and--"

"Oh--ho!" interrupted Mr. Perry in tone of sudden discovery. "So that's the way the wind blows, is it? I get you now. You're the son of one of those kidnappers."

The boy's face twitched, possibly with pain, more likely with alarm at his having betrayed his ident.i.ty so foolishly.

"We'll get down to the bottom of this mystery yet," Cub declared confidently.

"Yes, all we need is a little mathematics, Mr. Perry, and we'll soon solve the problem."

"We've had some mathematics already," Mr. Perry smiled.

"I didn't see it," returned Cub. "Maybe I'm slow."

"No, you haven't got farther than your One's in the addition table. You can add 1 to any other number, but you can't tell how much 2 plus 2 are."

"All right, I'm foolish," admitted Cub. "Spring your joke."

"This is a rather serious situation in which to spring a joke,"

reminded the "foolish boy's" father. "But didn't you hear me put two and two together when this fellow declared that this island belonged to his father?"

Laughter greeted this sally, in spite of the seriousness of the situation.

"By the way, I wonder if we haven't got this youngster's father a prisoner on the Catwhisker," Mr. Perry continued. Then he turned toward the youth on the cot and inquired:

"Is your father a tall, angular fellow with a smart, flip way of talking, and do his friends call him captain?"

The catapult victim did not answer, but the expression on his face was all the evidence that was needed to indicate what an honest reply would have been.

"I thought so," said Mr. Perry. "Now, would you like to make a trip down to the landing and occupy a stateroom in the Catwhisker with your father?

The Catwhisker, by the way, is a yacht in which we made a trip from Oswego, New York, to rescue a boy marooned by some young scamps on this island. After he was marooned, your father and his friends kidnapped him and took him away. Now, what we want to know is, where is he?"

Still the wounded prisoner made no reply.

"There's going to be some awful serious trouble for your outfit if that boy isn't returned," Mr. Perry went on, waxing fiercer and more fierce in his manner as he purposely worked up a towering rage for the sake of its effect on the boy on the cot. "Would you like me to turn you over to the father of the boy whom your scoundrel gang kidnapped? What do you think would happen to you if he got hold of you? Well, he's on the boat down at the landing, and your father is there too, under lock and key. And before long we're going to have the whole gang of you under lock and key. Now, don't you think it is best for you to give up your secret and tell where that boy is?"

The prisoner was now thoroughly frightened. He shrunk away from the glowering owner of the Catwhisker as if he feared the man's clenched fists were about to rain blows on his wounded body. At last he gasped in trembling tones:

"I don't know, I don't know."

"Don't know what?" thundered Mr. Perry.

"I don't know--I don't know--where he is," stuttered the terrified boy.

"And I don't believe you, young sir. Do you understand me? You're not telling the truth. Come on, boys, we'll turn him over to the father of the boy they kidnapped."

"Oh, no, no; don't, please don't, mister," pleaded the scared youngster.

"I don't know where that boy is; please sir, I don't. But I'll ask my father to tell if you'll take me to him."

"There, I thought we'd get something out of you," said Mr. Perry in tone of satisfaction.

"But you didn't do it with mathematics this time, dad," Cub declared in a voice that indicated full confidence of victory.

"Oh, yes, I did, my youthful minus quality," his father flashed back. "I multiplied my wrath very righteously, and this fellow is going to have his woes multiplied and his joys subtracted and his peace of mind divided into a thousand more pieces if he doesn't get busy on the square and see to it that young Alvin Baker is returned to his father."

"He isn't hurt nearly as bad as he pretends to be, Mr. Perry," Hal put in as the "mathematical man" indicated that he had "spoken his speech". "He moved his leg several times. You better watch out or he'll be jumping up and making a dash for liberty."

"I'd been noticing that," Mr. Perry replied. "I wouldn't insult Bud's catapulting powers by intimating that this fellow wasn't pretty badly hurt; but I do think we've overestimated the extent of the injury. He was completely knocked out by the blow, but he's been recovering here pretty rapidly. Come on, now, Master Howard--what's your first name--won't tell, eh?--all right; we'll find out in due time--come on, let's talk a walk down to papa and that terrible man whose claws are just aching for revenge for the loss of his son. What--you can't get up? Well, boys, pick him up again and carry him. Be careful, of course, for he's in some pain yet. Now, we'll march. Bud, you bring up the rear with your mediaeval rubber pistol, and I'll march beside you. If anybody, tries to interfere with us there'll be some crack-shot shooting."

Hal, Cub, Bud, and Max picked up the wounded boy in approved relief-ambulance-corps style and carried him, with a few groans and moans from their burden, across the open area, through the narrow belt of bushes, to the top of the hill that overlooked the landing. There Mr.

Perry called a halt and then hailed the yacht thus:

"Ahoy, the Catwhisker."

All listened breathlessly, but no answer came. Then the owner of the boat put greater volume in his voice and repeated the hail:

"Ahoy, the Catwhisker! Ahoy, the Catwhisker!"