The four scouts recognized him now, though never more taken aback in all their lives. When last they saw this young fellow, who had indeed lived near Hampton,—his father being a crabbed old farmer who hated the very name of Boy Scouts,—Jared had been hand-in-glove with some foreign plotters who meant to blow up the locks of the gigantic Panama Canal. As narrated in the preceding volume, Rob and his intimate chums were largely instrumental in preventing this terrible crime from being carried out; and at that time young Jared had managed to escape, while the chief conspirators were captured.
Indeed, the scouts had forgotten that there had been such a fellow as Jared Applegate in the wide world; and now to have him turn up unexpectedly like this, with a frantic appeal for them to save his life on account of those old schoolboy days, was certainly staggering.
They turned and looked at each other, while the guard who had followed after the prisoner-of-war waited to see what would happen, seeming to realize that this fellow must know the American lads who were so high in the good graces of the commander.
"It is Jared, as sure as shooting!" ejaculated Tubby, staring as though he had just seen a ghost.
"They say bad pennies always turn up again," observed Andy; "and I reckon Jared is about as tough a case as you could find."
Rob and Merritt did not say anything along those lines. They could not add to the burden under which it was plain the wretched youth was already staggering. And so Jared continued to wring his hands, kneeling there and waiting to hear the scout master, whom he knew so well, say whether he would lift his hand to help him, or simply turn aside and let things take their course.
"But how does it come that we find you here, and wearing the uniform of a Mexican Regular?" Rob asked him.
"The last we saw of you, remember, was on the Isthmus, where you played a low-down trick on us," Tubby interjected.
"Yes; and after I managed to get away from there I drifted to Mexico, because I was ashamed to go back home. I expected that you'd tell everybody what a fool I'd been, working with men who hated the United States and wanted to injure the Canal. Then I took the oath of allegiance to Mexico and entered the army because there wasn't anything else I could do. And now the rebels have captured me, they mean to stand me up against a wall and murder me! Oh! Rob, please get me off! You can do it if you will. It's up to you whether I'm killed or not! You wouldn't care to think of that always, would you?"
"Well, I don't like you any too much, Jared, because of what you've done in the past," Rob said slowly; "and when you try to put the whole thing on my shoulders you're on the wrong tack, because I haven't had a single thing to do with it. But I can't forget that you are a Hampton boy, bad as you've always been. If I should manage to get General Villa to let you go, what would you do?"