"Hold him until we hear from Sam."
They looked up the gully and soon espied the youngest Rover hurrying toward them.
"Where is Baxter?" asked Dick.
"He got away, but not until I had let him have that tar brush right in the neck," answered Sam. "Hullo, so you have captured old Crabby, eh? That's good."
"Surely you do not intend to—ahem—keep me a prisoner," remarked
Josiah Crabtree, in a voice which he tried in vain to steady.
"That's just what we do intend to do," answered Dick. "You'll march right to the Cedarville lock-up with us."
While Dick and Sam guarded the prisoner, Tom ran back for his torn
coat and other garments, and also for the rope. When he returned
Crabtree's hands were bound and the cadets told him to move along.
He was searched, and a pistol was taken from him.
Crabtree went along most unwillingly. Once he refused to budge, but Dick showed the pistol, and that settled his stubbornness, and he went along as willingly as a lamb.
On the outskirts of Cedarville the party met Chief Burger and
Detective Trigger.
"So you have one of them, eh?" cried the chief. "Very good, very good indeed. Turn him over to me and I will take him straight to headquarters."