"Blowed if I didn’t think you’d been dead a long time!" said Buckhart. "Whatever has happened to you, anyhow?"
"I’ll tell you after you take me down," promised Scudder. "Oh, somebody shall pay for this!"
Like a shadow a strange figure came out of the woods near at hand. It was an Indian, whose footfalls seemed to make absolutely no sound.
"Joe!" exclaimed Dick Merriwell, instantly recognizing Old Joe Crowfoot.
"Ugh!" grunted the redskin, a strange twinkle in his small black eyes.
"Perhaps he knows something about this," said Steve Nunn, captain of the eleven, with a motion toward Scudder.
"Joe know," nodded the old fellow. "Joe him been near in woods. Him know."
"Then how did it happen?" asked Frank Merriwell himself.
"Him come with odder one to watch football," explained Joe. "When um git here, him climb tree to see. Odder one him stay on ground. They hear somebody. Odder one he run. This one try to git down heap quick. Him fall; git ketched. See?"
"So he was playing the spy on us?" exclaimed Dick Merriwell, his eyes beginning to flash.