"Great Scott! I wonder if that fellow can be Blackie Crowden!" ejaculated Sam.
"G-g-go a-wa-way!" stuttered the man in the tree, and then tried to say something more, but the words only ended in a strange little whistle.
"Sam, do you really think it can be the fellow who robbed Songbird?" demanded Dick. "What would he be doing away out here?"
"Why, Blackie Crowden came from Denver or Colorado Springs," announced the youngest Rover. "Remember, we are not so many miles away from those places." He raised his voice. "You come down out of there, Crowden. We know you and we want you."
At this command the man in the tree seemed much disturbed. He tried to speak, but because of his natural stutter and his terror of the situation through which he was passing, his effort was a failure.
"If you don't come down, we'll haul you down," ordered Dick, finally, and then, after a little more urging, the fellow finally consented to come out of the tree, and dropped into the rowboat.
"Blackie Crowden, as sure as fate!" murmured Sam, as soon as he got a good look at the fellow's features. "Well, if this isn't luck!"
"Evidently you know this fellow," came from Chester Waltham, curiously.
"We sure do!" declared Sam. "He's the man who knocked our college chum, John Powell, down on the road near Ashton and robbed him of four thousand dollars."
"I di-didn't r-r-rob any bo-body," stuttered Blackie Crowden. "It's all a mi-mis-mis-mista-ta-take!" and he ended with his usual queer whistle.