A conversation lasting perhaps five minutes followed the meeting, and then, leaving one man on guard, the others passed through the doorway under the vines and disappeared from view. The man who had remained outside was evidently the leader of the party, for the others had listened when he talked and had obeyed his orders, as indicated to Ned by gestures.
This man stood at the doorway behind the vines for a moment after the others had gone below and then seated himself on a crumbling wall not far away.
“Why don’t you geezle him?” whispered Jimmie, who was not staying back very far, much to Ned’s amusement.
“I was thinking of that,” Ned replied. “I shall have to circle around so as to get in on him from behind.”
“You wait a second,” whispered the boy, “and I’ll make him turn around so as to face the other way.”
Before Ned could offer any objections or restrain the boy’s hand, Jimmie launched a stone into the thicket on the other side. The watcher sprang to his feet instantly, moved away a few paces, and turned back.
“He’s goin’ to call the others,” Jimmie whispered.
The fellow approached the doorway as Jimmie spoke, which was exactly what Ned did not want. If the man would remain outside, alone, it might be possible to capture him with little risk. If he called his companions, there would be no hope of taking him prisoner.
Ned motioned to Jimmie and the lad threw another stone into the thicket, and again the watcher moved in that direction. This time he advanced to the edge of the thicket and bent over to peer under the overhanging branches of a tree.
Before he could regain an upright position, or give a cry of warning because of the quick steps he heard behind him, Ned was grappling with him, his fingers closing about the muscular throat. It was a desperate, although a silent, struggle for a minute, and Ned might have been disappointed in the result if Jimmie had not bounced in on the two and terminated the battle by sitting down on the head of the man Ned had already thrown to the ground. As an additional precaution against any noise calculated to alarm the others, Jimmie held his gun close to the captive’s nose.