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.
"Hello! 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 assurance 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 scraped 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 gratitude 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 mass 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 space 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 space 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.