Tom set up a loud shout.
“The gag,” came the quick command.
Tom’s outcry was hushed in an instant by the application of an elastic band fastened to a padded stick, which was tightly pressed between his lips. He was lifted bodily and carried away from the road just as a wagon rattled past the spot where he had been confronted by the gang.
The members spoke not a word as, bodily lifting their captive, they bore him helpless on their shoulders through the woods. They proceeded a quarter of a mile, finally halting at a low structure which Tom recognized.
It was the abandoned hut of a man who had passed a hermit-like existence in the densest part of a thicket. Tom was carried inside and placed on the broken floor of the hut, which was covered with dead leaves.
“What’s the orders, chief?” asked one of the crowd.
A whispered reply that Tom could not over-hear led to five of the party filing out of the hut like trained soldiers. The sixth, the leader, remained behind for half a minute.
“We’re coming back soon,” he said. “We’ll bring a skull and cross bones when we do. If you’ll swear on ’em never to cross our dead line again, maybe we’ll leave you go this time. If you don’t——”
The speaker aspirated a long low hiss and ground his teeth tragically. Then he, too, disappeared.
Tom had ample time for reflection as he lay alone in the darkness. He could not figure out what the Black Caps were up to. The whole proceeding was freakish, and carried along in the most heroic style of juvenile roysterers aping pirates and outlaws; yet Tom believed there was some definite motive underlying it all. What it was he could not at the moment decide.