“Well, we’re coming up on him like fun, anyway, no matter what the cause may be!” Bobolink declared, and then found it necessary to stop talking if he wanted to keep in the van with several of the swiftest runners among the scouts.
It was true that they were rapidly overtaking Jud, who ran in a strange zigzag fashion like one who was dizzy. He kept up until the leaders among his pursuers came alongside; then he stopped short, and, panting for breath, squared off, striking viciously at them.
Jack and two other scouts closed in on him, regardless of blows, and Jud was made a prisoner. He ceased struggling when he found it could avail him nothing, but glared at his captors as an Indian warrior might have done. 41
“Huh! think you’re smart, don’t you, overhaulin’ me so easy,” he told them disdainfully. “But if I hadn’t been knocked dizzy when I fell you never would a got me. Now what’re you meanin’ to do about it? Ain’t a feller got a right to walk the public streets of this here town without bein’ grabbed by a pack of cowards in soldier suits, and treated rough-house way?”
“That doesn’t go with us, Jud Mabley,” said Bobolink, indignantly. “You were playing the spy on us, you know it, trying to listen to all we were saying.”
“So as to tell that Lawson crowd, and get them to start some mean trick on us in the bargain,” added Tom Betts.
“O-ho! ain’t a feller a right to stop alongside of a church to strike a match for his pipe?” jeered the prisoner, defiantly. “How was I to know your crowd was inside there? The streets are free to any one, man, woman or boy, I take it.”
“How about the broken window, Jud?” demanded Bobolink, triumphantly.
“Yes! did you smash that pane of glass when you threw your match away, Jud,” asked another boy, with a laugh.
“He was caught in the act, fellows,” asserted Frank Savage, “and the next question with us is what ought we to do to punish a sneak and a spy?” 42