"I'm glad to know that, boy. Meant to drop in on you before. I must hurry along now. Of course, if Tag shows up about your camp, you won't tell him that you've seen me."
"Certainly not, sir," nodded Dick. "We'll also try to get word to you, if we see him. Where is your home?"
"Five Corners is my address," replied the deputy. "So long, boys!
Glad to have seen you again."
The cat-footed deputy was soon lost to sight among the trees.
Dave was the first to speak, and that was some moments later.
"Dick, you're foolish to feel any liking for Tag Mosher. He's bad all the way through. As it was he was locked up on a charge of possible manslaughter, and now he has escaped, taking with him firearms and ammunition enough to rid the county of peace and police officers. He'll do it, too, if he's cornered. Now, where's the good in that kind of a pest?"
"I don't know how to answer you," sighed Dick. "Perhaps I am foolish, but I'm not yet prepared to admit it. Instead, I still contend that I feel a sneaking liking for poor Tag."
"'Poor Tag,' indeed!" mimicked Tom Reade. "Poor wives and kids of the deputy sheriffs whom Tag may shoot down in their tracks before he's cornered at last! Dick, young Mosher is a budding outlaw and a bad egg all around."
"No decent citizen should feel any sort of sympathy for him," affirmed Harry Hazelton.
"Let Dick alone," objected Greg Holmes. "Dick generally knows what he's about, even in regard to his emotions and sympathies."