Very slowly he proceeded to elevate his hat again, and this time so soon after the last that he guessed that Joe would hardly have had time to change his position. So that it was again a shock to find a bullet swishing rather from the right. However, Hurley was a man with an iron nerve; moreover, he knew what awaited him should he be captured. Straightway leaping to his feet and trusting to Joe not having had time to reload, he dashed into the bush and, seeing our hero, threw himself upon him furiously. Nor did he deign to make use of his own weapon. Dropping it as if it were no longer of use, he gripped Joe with both hands and, swinging him aloft as he had done once before, he prepared to hurl him against a tree. Indeed, he almost carried out that intention; but Joe managed to curl in his legs and so escape.
"You're jest about dead this time," gasped Hurley. "You'd have done far better to have stayed right at home with the kids, which are yer place, than have come out here to take grown men. That'll finish it."
But the second swing he gave didn't finish the matter. Joe was a tougher foe to deal with than Hurley imagined, for, locking his arms round the murderer, he defied his every effort to lift him. But all the while he was conscious of the fact that the man was a great deal stronger than he, and that unless he could deal him a vital blow, his own chances were far from good. It was at this critical moment, when the two were once more struggling fiercely and had rolled to the ground, that a man came darting through the underwood. Dashing up to the combatants, he placed the muzzle of his old gun against the murderer's head and called loudly on him to surrender.
"You may jest as well throw it up, Hurley," he said, with wonderful coolness, "fer I guess you're cornered. 'Sides, ef you're troublesome you're like to get the sort o' dustin' a feller don't take to kindly. So jest turn it up. Joe, get a hold of his rifle. Now, my man, you stand there agin the tree and don't try hanky-panky. I ain't particular whether it's the law that deals with yer or me. Savvy?"
Hurley did; he unloosed his grip of our hero promptly and, now that the tables were turned, stood cowed and subdued in front of Hank, eyeing his old muzzle-loader askance. As for Hank, he grinned at Joe.
"It war a near call, lad," he said. "Strange that it should be you as really cornered him. But keep yer eye on him and yer finger on your trigger. There ain't never no saying when he'll be up to games, though it won't be often he'll play 'em once Mike's up. He could lift this hulkin' feller as ef he war a baby, and my, wouldn't he give him sauce!"
Some twenty minutes later Fox put in an appearance, and after him Mike. Hurley was promptly secured, his hands being bound behind his back, for Mike had lost his handcuffs, while a stout cord was passed from the lashings and secured to Fox's wrist. Then the party wended their way through the forest, and in a wonderfully short space of time came to the hut in which Hurley had taken refuge. Here their comrades joined them in the evening.
"It war a close call," said Peter, when he had heard of Joe's adventure; "but I ain't quite clear as to how it come about that you was out there in the forest all alone. Spin us the yarn."
"I was lost, that's the simple explanation," answered Joe, telling them how he had dashed hither and thither in a frenzy, and how a collision with a tree had in the end sent him senseless to the ground. "And a mighty big bump I've got to show for it," he added ruefully.
"You're jest mighty lucky to have one to show at all, young feller," growled Hank. "I ain't been in these parts without meeting with similar cases. I've known young fellers, and oldish men too, go off into the timber and never come back. I've seed a ghost of one crawl back after a week, and he as mad as a hatter. What's more, I know what the feelin' of bein' lost is. An old hunter same as me don't never feel like that. When I war young it war different. Nowadays I could find my way out anywhere. I'd do as you did, doss down fer the night—so I reckon that blow you got war lucky,—then, when morning came, I'd watch fer the sun, and I'd go ahead always in one direction; but it seems to me as ef supper war ready."