"It's Ted! It's Ted!" they shouted, and crowded around him.
The place was full of them. Across the room he saw the shining face of Stella, smiling a welcome at him. Ben and Kit, Carl, Clay, and all of them were there, and sitting at the table was the chief of detectives.
"Hello! Holding a post-mortem over me?" asked Ted.
"It comes pretty near that," said Bud. "Dog-gone you, what do you mean by goin' erway an' hidin' out on us that way? What in ther name o' Sam Hill an' Billy Patterson hev yer picked up now?" Bud was looking curiously at the bundle of rags in Ted's arms, for the boy still slept.
"This is a new pard," said Ted. "If it hadn't been for this kid you'd probably never seen me again."
"Erlucerdate," demanded Bud.
"Not until some one goes out to the nearest restaurant and orders up a stack of grub for Scrub and me. I haven't had anything to eat or drink for thirty-six hours, and I'm almost all in, and this kid has been living on apples and water for a couple of weeks. Now, hustle somebody and let me put this kid on the bed—-my back's nearly broke—or maybe it's my stomach, they're so close together now I can't tell which it is that hurts."
While Ted was laying the boy on the bed he woke up, and, finding himself in a strange place, and a finer room than he had ever been in before, surrounded by a lot of rather boisterous young men, he leaped to the floor and started to the door. But Ted caught him by the arm and drew him back.
"What's the matter with you, you young savage?" said Ted.
"Oh, I'm all right now," said the boy. "When I woke up I got rattled, I guess, but as long as you're here it's all right."