"Water!" he gasped, as Apple took the gag from his mouth. "Get me a drink."
Apple was able to supply him from his canteen, and even as he held it to the parched lips, Chick-chick was slashing the cords that had been drawn needlessly tight.
"I think I can manage this little old machine, I can," announced Chick-chick. "Apple, you can run my bike. Go back and get it."
"Rub my wrists where the cords cut, while he's gone," Glen begged. "That fellow that tied me up—he's a thief, that's what he is. He pulled 'em tighter just to see me wince."
He was too cramped to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of the door.
"It's the peddler," he declared. "He's running like a bull was chasing him, he is. He's headed straight for the car."
"We'll give him a surprise," said Glen. "Probably he's run on to somebody who knows that he's a thief and they're after him. I'll just lie the way I was and you stand where the door will hide you."
Glen missed his guess in one important trifle. J. Jervice did not wait to be surprised. He was in such terror that he waited for nothing. He threw a pack in at the door, slammed it, dropped the bar in place with the incredible swiftness of long practice and in less than a minute had his motor cranked and the car in motion.
Coming up on the motorcycle a minute later Apple saw the car disappearing around a turn in the road, and wildly chasing it a puffing, panting old man, brandishing a heavy club.
The positions of the scouts were changed for the better, but they yet were a long distance from freedom. Instead of Glen tied and gagged in the car with Chick-chick and Apple following on the motorcycle, Apple now was following alone, while, imprisoned in the car, were both Glen and Chick-chick with the fortunate difference that the gag and bonds were removed.