"Both barrels in the bargain, Joseph, mind you!" added Lil Artha, still burning with indignation as he recollected how they had seen the beast cuff poor Hen; and perhaps deep down in his boyish heart actually hoping the other might take a notion to try and get away, when they would be justified in peppering him, after he had run possibly thirty or forty yards.
"Oh! I guess the jig's all up with me, boys," said the man, with a look of sheer disgust on his face. "I've had a little run for my money, but the stone jug seems to be yawning for me. I was a fool to bother with the kid, it seems; but when the scheme came to me at first I thought it too fine to drop. Here's where I get paid for being a silly gump. What do you want me to do, boys? I'll obey with as much cheerful alacrity as I can, seeing that I'm starving to death just now."
"First of all," said Elmer, who had it all mapped out, "lie down on your face and put both hands behind you. We're going to tie you up, and wait for the Chief with his posse to come along. Do you get that, Joe?"
"Sure I do, and since it's Hobson's choice with me here goes. I suppose you fellows must be Boy Scouts. I once organized a troop of the same, but never dreamed I'd be arrested by the khaki crowd. It's all in a day's work, though."
He, accordingly, stretched himself flat on the ground. When they could see that he had his hands held behind his back, and conveniently crossed at the wrists, four of the boys advanced.
"Keep your gun aimed at him, Lil Artha," commanded the scout-master, "and if he tries any funny business let him have it in the legs. Here, Landy, you and Chatz sit on him while I secure his hands."
The man attempted no resistance, for he realized the folly of it. He did groan, however, when Landy squatted down on his legs, and the other fellows could hardly blame him for grunting. It was like a thousand of brick dropping from a second story building, as Lil Artha afterwards described it.
The job was quickly and neatly dispatched, Elmer wrapping his cord many times around the wrists of the prisoner. By this time Joe seemed to have recovered his nerve, and made out to consider the whole thing more in the light of a big joke than anything else.
Meanwhile, there was Hen standing near by, and hardly knowing whether to look delighted at seeing his cruel boss thus being tied up, or show the dreadful fear that was gripping his soul as he contemplated what must follow.
"Cheer up, Hen, old fellow," said Toby, stepping over to grasp his hand; but to his amazement Hen immediately broke down, and began to sob as if his heart were broken.