"Rob, oh, Rob, where are you?" called Andy, as they drew nearer to the strange sounds, which, besides spoken words, seemed to consist of the swishing of hurtling stones or clubs, and jeering laughter, all so queer that the scouts could make little or nothing of them.
For answer there was a flash, as Rob turned his torch toward them for just the space of a second; and at the same time he was heard calling close at hand:
"Here I am, just ahead of you, boys! Better look out or you'll get hit!"
"But what in the wide world is going on, Rob?" demanded Merritt, as he heard some object strike with a heavy thud among the bushes not two feet away from him.
"I'll show you what it means!" laughed Rob, who it turned out was hiding back of a fairly large tree-trunk not five feet away. As he spoke he sent the white light of his torch straight ahead once more.
What they saw astonished them. A moving figure caught their attention, and no explanation was needed to tell the boys that this must be the shorter one of the precious pair of rogues who had broken jail, and given the authorities of Suffolk and adjoining counties such a scare.
He seemed to be groping all around him, as though trying to find more stones or fragments of broken limbs with which to bombard the patrol leader, whose presence was betrayed by the flash of his torch.
"What's he doing there; and why does he lean over like that?" called out Tubby, at the same time dodging behind a convenient tree, when he saw the man proceed to hurl a stone in their direction, following it up with a stream of hard words that told how furious he felt.
"Why, the fact is," said Rob, still laughing, as though he considered it a good joke on the fugitive, "that he got himself in the neatest trap you ever saw. In the dark and his hurry he pushed his foot into some sort of frog made of the roots of a bush, and after that got so twisted up in the vines that if he was promised a thousand dollars for doing it, he just couldn't break away. I flashed the light on him, you see, where he was lying low, hoping we'd clear out and let him get away; and he was so mad he began to fire everything he could lay hands on at me. There's your second man, Chief. I'll hand over the job of taking him to you."
"Well, I wouldn't be afraid to wager you could do it as clever as the next one if it was up to you, son!" remarked the big officer, as he started toward the spot where the baffled fugitive crouched, looking about as furious and ugly as any one could who had been tripped up in this neat manner by ill fortune.