"What will you do with the horse and cutter?"
"If there is a livery stable handy, I think I'll put the horse up there," answered Sam. "He is evidently in no condition to be driven farther at present. I'll notify Mr. Sanderson about it." And so it was arranged.
A little while later, after the two boys had walked around to the police station with the officer and given such particulars as they were able concerning the assault and robbery, Sam and Spud started on the return to the Bray farmhouse. When they arrived there, they found that Dr. Havens and Dr. Wallington had come in some time before. By the directions of the head of Brill the physician from Ashton had given Songbird a thorough examination and had treated him with some medicine from his case.
"The cut on his head is rather a deep one," said the doctor to the boys, "but fortunately it is not serious, nor will there be any bad effects from the blow on his chin. He can thank his stars though that the crack on his head did not fracture his skull."
"We are going to take him back to Brill in a large sleigh," said Dr. Wallington, "and then I think the best he can do will be to go to bed."
"Oh, I can't do that!" broke in Songbird, who was still on the couch, propped up by pillows. "I've got to get to Mr. Sanderson's and explain how the thing happened."
"You had better let me do that, Songbird," answered Sam, kindly. "I can drive over there and Spud can go with me. You just let us know exactly how it occurred." This, of course, was after the boys had related the particulars of their failure to catch the fleeing criminal at Dentonville.
"It happened so quickly that I hardly realized what was taking place," answered the would-be poet of Brill. "I was driving along from Knoxbury, where I had been to the bank for Mr. Sanderson, when I came to the spot where I suppose you found me. Just as I reached there a man in a heavy overcoat, and with a thick fur cap pulled over his face so that I could hardly see him, stepped in front of the cutter.
"'Say! can you tell me where these people live?' he asked me, and thrust a sheet of paper towards me. 'I've lost my eye-glasses, and I can't see to read without them.'
"I took the paper he handed out and started to look at some writing on it which was very indistinct. As I bent over the paper the man swung a club or something in the air and struck me on the head. Then, as I tried to leap up and defend myself, he hit me another blow on the chin. That seemed to knock me clean out of the cutter; and that is all I know about it."