SOME IMITATION VILLAINY
"Oh, Dick, do keep back. He won't harm us further," cried Laura.
Prescott ran forward by leaps and bounds.
"If you will have it-----" growled Tag, cocking both hammers of his
ugly weapon.
Laura uttered another scream, then, with sudden frenzy, seized
the barrels of the gun.
"Let go!" yelled Dick, racing up. "If he fires, even accidentally,
you'll be killed."
"Then let him put down the gun," panted Laura without releasing
her hold.
Belle seized Tag by his right arm, hanging on frantically.
But Dick, reaching the spot, laid hands on the shotgun.
"Let go, Laura," he commanded sternly. "I have hold of this gun."
It was the tone of the high school boy, not her own fear, that
made Laura Bentley obey.
"Let go of his arm, Belle," Dick insisted. "You girls get back
out of harm's way."
"I won't let go," Belle insisted. Then she resorted, excusably
under the circumstances, to the somewhat feminine trick, of pinching
Tag Mosher's arm sharply.
That started the real fight. Dick tripped the bigger fellow,
and the pair went down together as Belle leaped back.
Click! click! sounded both descending hammers of the sawed-off
shotgun. For an instant---Prescott's heart was in his mouth,
for he knew something of the wicked scattering power of such a
weapon, when discharged, and he feared for the girls.
The next instant, however, his common sense told him that the
hammers had descended harmlessly. By desperate force he wrenched
the piece out of Tag's hands, hurling it away.
Laura's locket, and chain falling to the ground, Belle darted
in and rescued them.
"He has my rings in his right-hand coat pocket," Belle announced.
"He'll give them up, then!" predicted Dick grimly, making a dive
for that pocket. He was on top, in the mix-up, and secured the
rings, tossing them toward Belle. Then Tag, by a violent effort,
hurled Prescott from him and rose, ready for battle.
But Dick landed close beside the sawed-off shotgun, which he snatched
from the ground as he rose to his feet.
"You cur!" said Dick. "Robbing girls!"
"I hated to do it," growled Tag, looking somewhat shamefaced.
"But I've got to have money to get away from this corner of the
world. The deputies are out after me, and they'll get me yet,
if I stay here."
With a quick movement Dick threw the gun open at the breech.
"It isn't loaded," Tag informed him grimly. "This is the piece
of iron that holds cartridges."
From a hip pocket he brought a heavy, long-barreled revolver into
sight.
"You can't scare me with firearms," declared Dick doughtily.
"Nor are you going to rob these young women, who are my best friends."
"I'm not going to try again," announced Tag. "What I want is
for you to keep away from me, and not follow me. If you do---well,
you can guess the answer! Now, as I'm going, give me that gun."
"I won't," Dick declared firmly, holding it by the muzzle and
ready to employ the weapon as a club.
"You'll make a lot of trouble and danger for yourself and the
girls if you don't put the gun on the ground and walk away from
it," warned Tag, glowering.
"I won't drop the only weapon that I have," Dick returned firmly.
"You could down me easily unless I had something like this to
swing. As long as these young women are under my protection I
will not give up the only weapon that I have."
"If I press the trigger of this pistol," challenged Tag, "will
you be able to offer the girls much protection then?"
"Perhaps not," Prescott rejoined. "But shooting me will be the
only way that you can get this gun from me."
There could be no doubt that the high school boy meant just what
he said. Tag, who was not accustomed to wasting time in crises,
turned angrily on his heel.
"Hold on there a moment," called Dick. The other boy baited,
turning about. "Do you remember what I told you the other day?"
demanded Prescott.
"You've told me a lot of things I never took from any other kid,"
growled Tag.
"Do you remember what I told you about your father, his love for
you, and his desire to meet and claim you?"
"Old Bill Mosher's love?" laughed Tag harshly. "I'd stay and
laugh a while at that, but I've other business for to-day."
"No; your real father, Mr. Page!" Dick cried after him, as Tag
started away. "Bill Mosher found you in a railroad wreck. Your
real father is a man of wealth. He is nearly broken down from
the many anxieties of trying to find you. He spent last night
at our camp. This morning he and friends of his started off to
find you. Tag, come back here, and I'll take you into camp."
"No, thank you!" leered the larger boy. "I've been taken into
camp before, and you're the lad that turned the trick. You turned
me over to Valden and Simmons, and they turned me over to the
warden at the jail. I'm not going back to that jail---_alive_!"
"You foolish fellow! Can't you understand?" bellowed Dick, following
Tag as he once more turned away. "I'm telling you the truth,
and your father is only too anxious to employ all his wealth in
protecting whatever rights you may have. Bill Mosher was seen
at the jail yesterday, and he admitted that you were not his son,
but that he found you as a baby at a railroad wreck! Tag, use
your brains, for once, and come back to camp to meet your father!"
"Good-bye!" laughed the larger boy derisively, increasing his
fast walk to a run.
Desperately, Dick Prescott followed. As Tag sprinted, so did
the high school boy.
Looking back, young Mosher tripped over a root, and fell heavily.
The revolver flew from his hand landing several feet away. Prescott
was now so close that Tag sprang to his feet and ran on without
making any effort to recover his lost weapon.
Then the larger boy dived into a thicket. He did not appear again.
Master of every hidden path in these forests, he seemed likely
enough to get away without leaving a trace of a trail.
Dick halted, brought to his senses by the realization that he
had deserted the three high school girls who had been entrusted
to his escort. He turned about. At the spot where Tag had tripped
he bent over to pick up the abandoned revolver.
One glance into the cylinder was enough. There wasn't a cartridge
in the weapon.
"Just as I thought," laughed Dick triumphantly. "Tag had no notion
of shooting anyone. For fear he might do so, if too closely cornered,
he threw away the ammunition. He relied on the bad reputation
of the Moshers to make officers hesitate if they encountered him
with firearms in his hands."
Then Prescott called for the girls, whom he quickly rejoined.
"You didn't catch him?" asked Laura.
"Not I," laughed Dick. "He knows every trail in these woods and
in a sprint, Tag Mosher could leave me hitched to a tree."
"I'm thankful you didn't catch him," quivered Miss Bentley. "He's
a terrible fellow."
"Is he?" laughed Prescott good-humoredly. "As a bad man Tag Mosher,
or young Page, as he really ought to be called, is about the biggest
bluff that I've ever heard of. Look at these weapons. Both unloaded.
Yet, when Tag broke jail, he carried away ammunition enough to
hold a company of militia at bay. Tag doesn't want to shoot anyone.
All he wants to do is to scare pursuers."
"He's a ruffian, anyway," Belle declared.
"Why? Was he very rough with you?" Dick inquired. "Did he tear
your rings off recklessly, and hurt your hands?"
"No; but be held my hand so firmly that I simply couldn't pull
it out of his clutch," Belle replied. "Then he took off my rings
as easily and in as matter-of-fact way as though they were his
own property."
"He really didn't mean to hurt you," Dick explained. "He has
been trained, from babyhood, to make his living by appropriating
other people's belongings, and he was only obeying his training.
The officers are after him, and Tag, not wishing to be caught,
wants to put considerable distance between himself and these woods.
Yet no matter what he does, or where he goes, the officers will
finally find him. Law is supreme, and triumphs in the end. No
man may defy the police and courts of a nation and get away with
it for any great length of time."
"Would you have tried to catch him, if we hadn't been with you?"
asked Laura.
"Yes," Dick admitted. "Though under the circumstances I had no
right to do anything but stay here with you and try to protect
you. Shall we go on with the collecting?"
"If the other girls want to do so," agree Susie Sharp.
"If we want to?" Laura echoed. "After the fright we've had?
All that we want to do is to-----"
"Get back to camp?" smiled Dick. "I'm wholly agreeable. Truth
to tell, I've had such a fright that my nerves are shattered."
"Your nerves shattered?" echoed Belle scornfully. "Tell that
to someone who never lived in Gridley, Dick Prescott! You flew
at that fellow like a tiger."
"But look at the magnificent help I had!" smiled Dick.