“He was trying to steal the machine,” the other said.
“Green has a bullet hole through his shoulder,” Ned said, “but I want you to treat the prisoner as if the shot had been fatal. Kindly carry him to his tent.”
The command was instantly obeyed, for the foresters all knew why Ned was there, and understood that he was the personal representative of the Secret Service chief at Washington. Ned then called Frank aside and spoke a few words in a whisper. The boy grinned and hastened back to the group about Sawyer.
“Nestor wants to talk with Sawyer,” he explained, “and wants me to take him to his tent.”
“We’ll take him to Nestor’s tent after we get done with him,” declared a burly forester whose face bore many evidences of the hard fight he had made during the fire. “It won’t take us long to settle with him.”
Frank spoke a few words to the man and he was one of the first to push the prisoner toward Nestor’s tent.
“If you’ll keep those men off me,” were Sawyer’s first words, “I’ll tell you what you want to know. They mean to kill me.”
“I think there is little doubt about that,” was Ned’s reply. “Why did you want the aeroplane?”
“If you must know,” was the reply, “I was sent here to get it, or to wreck it so you couldn’t use it.”
This looked promising, and Ned waved a hand at Frank.