"Yes, it's me, all right," remarked the object of their attention, with rather a sickly grin, as he started to get out a handkerchief to apply to his bleeding nose; "anyhow, it's what's left of me after that nasty tumble."
"Are you hurt bad, Matt?" demanded Dr. Ted, scenting an opportunity to practice his arts of healing; "because if you feel that you've broken a leg, or your collar bone, call on me for help. Won't charge you a cent either. Glad to cut off a limb or do any little favor. Don't be bashful, now; just thspeak up."
"Oh! rats, I ain't hurt so bad as that! I reckon I kin get up all right," and as he spoke Matt proceeded to prove the truth of his assertion by scrambling to his feet, though he winced a little as he did so.
"Where'd you ever come from?" demanded Matty. "We felt sure you'd gone off in that car with your father and the police, headed for Cramertown. Say, are they near here; and did they turn back?"
"Naw," grunted Matt. "I jumped out after I got to thinkin' about it. Seemed to me after what I saw Elmer Chenowith do yesterday up at the place of my aunt, that he'd be more apt to find that pesky Dolph Gruber than a pack of noisy cops. So I just follered the bunch, that's all."
And strange to say, Elmer felt more pride over hearing one who had been an enemy speak these words of praise than he would have been had his chums gone into ecstasies over his work as a trailer. He believed he knew what was going on in that mind of Matt. And he was not at all sorry for it, either. It might mean great things in the near future for both the Fairfield boys, and those of the Hickory Ridge troop.
"D'ye mean to tell us, Matt, you've been dodging after us right along, and none of us saw you?" demanded Red.
The Fairfield bully grinned; and as his broad face was by this time pretty well smeared with traces of blood, he presented a queer appearance while so doing.
"All the same, that's just what I done, Red," he declared. "Sometimes I was that clost I heard every word you fellers said. Then agin I dropped back, when the cover got thinner. An' right here let me say I was huggin' the ground all the time Elmer, he says such great things about the trail, an' the ottermobile on that road. Never knowed there could be so much diskivered by just peekin' at footprints. Gosh! 'twas great, that's what."
"Well, where are you going?" asked Toby, between whom and the Fairfield bully there was a long standing grudge.