“L-l-let me g-go,” he begged. “I’ll g-g-give you a th-th-thousand dollars if you l-let me go.”
“Keep still, you skunk,” ordered Bob. “Do you think I’m a crook like yourself?”
“I’ll m-m-m-make it two th-th-thousand,” stuttered Cassey.
“Not if you made it a hundred thousand,” replied Bob. “I’ve got you, Cassey, and you won’t get off this time as easily as you did when you tried to rob an orphan girl. It’s you for jail, and you’ll stay a good long while where the dogs won’t bite you.”
At intervals Bob repeated his call in order to guide his friend, and in a few minutes there was a crashing of the bushes and Joe stood at his side, almost breathless with the haste he had made.
“What is it, Bob?” he asked, peering down on the prostrate form of Cassey, on which Bob was still sitting.
“I have met the enemy and he is ours,” answered Bob exultingly. “I’m afraid he’s a little out of breath from my sitting on him. So just slip off your belt, Joe, and fasten his feet together and then I can get up and stretch my legs.”
It took but a minute for Joe to pinion Cassey’s feet securely, and then Bob got up. He told Joe briefly what had taken place.
“There’s just one thing to do, Joe,” Bob concluded. “You streak it for town and bring a policeman and we’ll turn this fellow over to him. In the meantime I’ll stand guard—Hello, what’s that?”
There was a glare of light from the lamps of an automobile that was coming from the direction of Ocean Point. The car had just turned a curve in the road a hundred yards away and was bearing down upon them rapidly.