"Throw up your hands, gol ding yer. I'm the chief uv perlice, an' I arrest ye fer ther robbery of one gold watch and assault and batt'ry."
"Confound it, the old hayseed led me into a trap!" exclaimed Bill.
He threw himself out of the rig and started to run. But, as he did so, Jack and Billy, who had crawled out from the back, suddenly appeared. Bill gave a wild shout, and the next instant he was sprawling headlong in the dusty street, while a crowd came rushing from all directions.
Jack had tripped him by an old football trick. With an oath the desperado reached for his revolver. But, before he could reach it, he was pinioned by a dozen pairs of hands, and marched, struggling and swearing, into the police station.
He was searched, and Billy's watch found on him, as well as the money. Then he was locked up. He refused to give any information about the Judsons, in which he showed his astuteness, for, if they had been caught, his plight would have been worse than it was, for they would have been certain to implicate him deeply. So he contented himself by saying that he knew nothing about them. They had hired him to help the elder Judson recover his nephew from another uncle, who had treated him badly. He knew nothing more about the case, he declared, except that, after Jack's escape, the Judsons had left for New York. (It may be said here that he was eventually found guilty of the theft and the assault and received a jail sentence.)
Abner was well rewarded for the clever way he had brought about Bill's capture; and, well pleased with the way everything had come out, the boys resumed their journey.
"I hope Abner will invest part of what I gave him in an ear-trumpet," said Jack, as they entered Musky Bay.
"I hope so," laughed Billy. He was going to add something, but a shout stopped him.
"There's Captain Simms and Noddy," shouted Jack, as the two came running toward the vehicle. There is no need to go into the details of the reunion, or to relate what anxious hours the captain and Noddy had gone through after their discovery that the boys had vanished. If they had not reappeared when they did, Captain Simms was preparing to organize posses and make a wide search for them, as well as enlisting the aid of the authorities. In the vague hope that the Judsons and Jarrow might have remained in the stone house, waiting Bill's return, a party searched it next day, under the guidance of a native who knew the trail to it. But it was empty. A search for the black motor boat, too, resulted in nothing being found of her.
As a matter of fact, not many minutes after Bill, from whom they wished to be separated, had left the house, the Judsons—father and son—and Jarrow, had made all speed to the point where the motor craft had been left and had hastily made off in her. They knew that the search for Jack would be hot and wished to get as far away from Bill as he treacherously wished to get from them. In their case there was certainly none of the proverbial honor among thieves.