THRASHING AN AMBULANCE CASE!
"I want you to stand right where you are until some of my friends
come," Dick made answer.
Then he braced himself for the violent assault that, he felt,
was sure to come. To his intense astonishment, however, Tag heaved
a sigh of dejection, then muttered:
"I may as well do it. You owe me a grudge, anyway, and you've
got the upper hand this time."
What on earth could it mean? For a brief instant Dick almost
believed that the exciting incidents of the night had been but
parts of a dream. But he raised his voice to shout:
"Dave! Oh, Dave! Come here! You, too, Greg."
"Coming," came the call, in Darry's voice. The sound of running
feet sounded on the road.
Tag Mosher glanced uneasily about, as if meditating flight. Then
his keen eyes scrutinized Prescott's face.
"What's up?" demanded Dave, as, even in the darkness he caught
sight of another figure.
"Darry," smiled Dick, "I wish to present my friend, Mr. Tag Mosher."
"What?" gasped Darrin. "This Tag Mosher. By Jove, it is, it?
How on earth did you make him wait for us?"
Then, all in a flying heap Dave projected himself against young
Mosher, clinching with him and bearing him down to the ground.
In order to make doubly sure Greg joined in the assault. But
Tag, though he struggled, did not put up much of a fight.
"Quit!" he ordered sullenly. "I'm all in. Can't you fellows
see that? But if I hadn't been sick I'd either have gotten away,
or would have given you fellows a fight that you'd never forget!"
Quick-witted Dave was not long in discovering that Tag really
was weak, as though from a recent illness.
"Say," demanded Darry, "have we been exerting ourselves to thrash
an ambulance case?" His voice rang with self disgust.
"If I'd been a well one," growled Tag, "you never would have put
me down, or held me. But I'm like a kitten to-night----strength
all gone!"
"What's going on here?" asked Deputy Valden, putting in a more
leisurely appearance.
"Something right in your line," Dick answered. "Dave and Greg
are holding down Tag Mosher."
"You're not fooling, are you?" demanded the deputy. "You're not
making any mistake, either?"
"We know Tag Mosher when we see him," Darry retorted. "We've
good enough reason for knowing him."
With his uninjured left hand Deputy Valden reached for his pair
of handcuffs, passing them to Dave.
"Here you are, Darrin," said the officer. "You know how to put
these things on, don't you?"
"I can figure the job out, sir," Dave made reply.
Tag submitted, wearily, to having the steel bracelets snapped
over his wrists. Then he heaved a sigh that had something of
a sob in it.
"I let you put these on, but I wish you'd take them off again,"
he said, addressing Valden. "I know I'm bad, and I know I'm tough,
but I never had these things on my hands before. Take 'em off,
won't you? Please!"
Such submission was tame, indeed. Deputy Valden, who had never
seen young Mosher before glanced sharply at young Prescott.
"This fellow doesn't seem much like the hardened criminal I've
been told about," remarked the officer.
"Did Prescott tell you I was tough?" demanded the prisoner. "He
ought to know! He had a touch of my style when I was feeling
better than I feel to-night. I suppose I've been nabbed for helping
myself to a sandwich or two from their camp."
"Do you demand to know why you're under arrest?" inquired Deputy
Valden.
Tag nodded.
"Well, then," continued the deputy, "you're wanted for cracking
the skull of a farmer named Leigh. There's a doubt if Leigh will
live and you may be charged with killing him."
"I? Killed a farmer?" demanded Tag, in what appeared to be very
genuine amazement.
"Leigh says you're the chap that did it," Valden answered.
"I never heard of a man of any such name," argued Tag. "Still,
if he says I did it, oh, well, he ought to know, and I suppose
it will be all right."
"It'll have to be all right---whatever the courts may do to you,
Mosher," Deputy Valden rejoined curtly. "Darrin, will you help
the prisoner to his feet and lead him back to where the bridge
was? Simmons will expect to find us there when he gets back."
So Darry and Greg Holmes assisted young Mosher to his feet. Dave
took hold of Tag's arm, though the latter did not resist, but
walked along like one in a dream.
"Want any help, Dick?" asked Greg.
"I believe I wouldn't object to having a friendly arm to lean
on," Prescott replied. "I've been standing here so long that
my hip is stiff again."
As the leader of Dick & Co. moved down the road, Tag turned in
astonishment.
"What's the matter?" Tag asked, at last.
"We were in an automobile accident, and I was slightly injured,"
Dick confessed.
"And you can hardly walk?"
"I can walk only with effort and considerable pain," said Dick.
Tag Mosher whistled softly.
"My luck is leaving me," declared Mosher ruefully. "Prescott,
when I saw you and looked you over I didn't see that you are a
cripple. I thought you were in as good shape as ever. As for
me, I can't do much to-night, I'm so weak. I thought that, if
I tried to fight, you'd handle me easily enough. If I ran, I
knew I couldn't run far, and you'd jump on my back and bear me
to the ground. So I thought it easier to let you have your own
way with me. Whee! I didn't do a thing but surrender to a cripple
that ought to be on crutches! My luck is gone!"
This last was said with an air of great dejection, as though Tag
never looked to have any further pleasure in life. Presently
he muttered, half aloud:
"And now they say that I've committed a murder! They'll prove
it on me, too. Tag Mosher, you're done for."
"Anyway, you're in a rather bad fix, young man," confirmed Deputy
Valden. "Even with the best luck you'll be locked up for some
years to come."
"That will kill me!" muttered Tag sullenly. "I can't live anywhere
outside of the big forest. In jail---why, I'd die of lack of
fresh air! My father, old Bill Mosher, can get along in jail
all right---he's used to it. But me? The first two weeks behind
bars will kill me!"
"You should have thought of that before you cracked Leigh's skull,"
retorted Deputy Valden.
"I tell you that I didn't do it, and that I never before heard
of a man of that name!" cried Tag Mosher fiercely.
"Leigh says you did," the deputy again informed the prisoner.
"Oh, well, then, we'll say that I did," agreed Tag moodily. "I'm
as good as finished, if the charge has been made. No one around
here would think of believing anything that Tag Mosher might say."
Somehow, despite the unsavory reputation of the prisoner, Dick
Prescott found himself feeling more than ordinary sympathy for
this dejected prisoner. Could it be possible that Tag really
was innocent of this last and most serious charge against him?
It didn't seem likely that the officers had gone after the wrong
young man.
"Tag is bad, and yet there's also good in him that is very close
to the surface," Prescott told himself. "It seems really too
bad to think of this young fellow being locked up, away from the
sunshine and the fresh air of the woods. And yet, if he makes
a sport of manslaughter, of course he'll have to be put away where
he can't do any harm. Oh, dear! I wonder why I feel so much
sympathy for a fellow of this kind?"
They were at the broken bridge, now, with the wreck of the automobile
lying in the creek.
"Mosher," said the deputy sternly, "Officer Simmons suspects that
you believed we'd be after you, and that you tore up some of the
planks from this crazy old bridge, so that our car would be wrecked.
Did you do that?"
"Oh, I suppose I must have," replied Tag, with the air of one
who feels it fruitless to deny what peace officers were prepared
to charge against one of his bad reputation.
"Then you admit damaging the bridge?" asked Valden.
"I admit nothing of the kind," Tag retorted.
"Who ripped the boards up?"
"I don't know."
"We'll prove it against you," declared Valden positively.
"Oh, I s'pose you will," grumbled Tag. "It's easy to prove anything
against old Bill Mosher's son. My dad's where he can't help me."
"Are you going to play the baby act?" asked the deputy,
half-sneeringly.
"Wait until I've had a week of good eating and sound sleeping,
and then see if you can find anything babyish about me," snapped
the prisoner.
Dick Prescott watched the pair, feeling a rising resentment against
the deputy. Yet Valden was only resorting to tricks as old as
the police themselves---the taunting of a prisoner into talking
too much and thereby betraying his guilt.
"Pardon me, Tag," Dick now interposed, "but it's a principle of
law that a prisoner doesn't have to talk unless he wants to.
I don't believe, if I were you, I'd say anything just now."
"I'm not going to say anything more," Tag retorted moodily, yet
with a flash of somewhat sullen gratitude to Prescott.
"Humph! You'd better talk, and get all you know out of your system,"
advised Deputy Valden contemptuously. "And the first thing you'd
better own up to is pulling the missing planks up from this crazy
old bridge."
Tag snorted, yet had no word to say. Instead, as best he could
with his hands in the steel bracelets, he helped himself to a
seat on the ground his back against a tree. Either he was extremely
weary, or he was pretending cleverly.
"Come! I guess you can talk better standing up," admonished Deputy
Valden, seizing Tag by the coat collar and dragging him to his
feet. Mosher accepted the implied order in sullen silence.
"Is it necessary, Mr. Valden, to torment the prisoner?" asked
Dick quietly.
"The way I handle a prisoner is my business," replied Valden rather
crisply.
"You'd rather sit down, wouldn't you,
Tag?" Dick inquired. Young Mosher answered only with a nod.
"It makes you feel weaker to stand, doesn't it?" Prescott continued.
Another nod.
"Mr. Valden," Dick pressed, "I hope you won't think me too forward,
but I believe this prisoner, and I am going to urge you to let
him find comfort by sitting down and resting."
"What have you got to say about it?" demanded Mr. Valden, so brusquely
that Dick flushed.
"I'm not in a position of authority, and I admit it," Prescott
replied. "But I think I have a right to object when I see a human
being tormented needlessly, haven't I?"
"You have no right to interfere in any way with an officer," rejoined
Valden less brusquely.
"Nor do I intend trying to interfere with a peace officer in anything
proper that he does," Dick went on quietly, though with spirit.
"It seems that Tag Mosher has a right to rest himself by sitting
down. If he tries again to sit down, and if you stop him from
so doing, then Tag, if he wishes, may have me summoned to court
to tell how he was tormented. I'll be willing to tell just whatever
I may see here."
Valden snorted, almost inaudibly, then turned away. Tag slid
down to the ground again, resting against the tree trunk, and
preserving absolute silence.
The time passed slowly, but at last Deputy Simmons came in a car,
followed by another car which contained a young man whom he introduced
as Dr. Cutting.
"I'll take you right back to camp," announced Dr. Cutting, after
Simmons had looked over his prisoner and then introduced the physician
to Prescott. "I can examine you better when I have you at your
summer home and handy to your bed. Can you get into the car?"
"I can use my arms to draw myself up," Dick answered.
"Then let me see how well you can do it," urged the young physician,
stepping back to watch Prescott, yet ready to assist him if necessary.
Dick got himself into the tonneau of the car, after some painful
effort.
"Doc, you'll take the boys back to their camp, won't you?" called
Simmons.
"Certainly."
"And remember, Prescott," called Simmons, "you've been aiding
the county to-night, and the county will pay Doctor Cutting's bill."
Valden and Simmons exchanged some words in an undertone, after
which the latter deputy came over to where Prescott sat.
"Valden tells me you have been interfering between him and Tag
Mosher," began the officer. "How was it?"
Dick gave a quick, truthful account of his interference.
"You did right, Prescott," agreed Simmons, gripping the boy's
hand. "Remember that any citizen has a right to interfere when
he sees a prisoner being abused. Valden is a good fellow at bottom,
and he's a brave fighter in time of real trouble. But he's just
like a lot of other policemen who feel that they have to get all
the evidence in a case. All a peace officer has to do is to find
a criminal and make the arrest. It's the district attorney's
business to get the evidence, but there are a good many peace
officers to whom you can't teach that. Prescott, the next time
you see a prisoner being abused you are to do the same as you
did this time. I hope your hip will soon be all right again.
I'll try to look in on you in a day or two at your camp. Thank
you for what you did for law and order to-night. Good night!"