“I did nothing of the kind!” cried Rod, indignantly, now finding a chance to speak. “This is an outrage, and——”
“Is this the fellow, Al?” asked the spokesman, interrupting the young brakeman’s vehement protest.
“Of course it is. I’d know him anywhere by that bag slung over his shoulders, an he’s got pistols in his pockets, too.”
“Yes, here they are,” replied the leader, thrusting his hands into Rod’s coat pockets and drawing forth the two revolvers. “Oh, there’s no use talking, young man. The proof against you is too strong. The only thing for you to do is to come along quietly and make the best of the situation. Horse thieves have been getting altogether too plenty in this part of the country of late, and we’ve been laying for one to make an example of for more ’n a week now. Its mighty lucky for you that you didn’t tackle an armed man instead of Al there, this morning. If you had you’d have got a bullet instead of a horse.”
“But I tell you,” cried Rod, “that I took those things from a man who was flung from that horse back here in the road about a mile. He is——”
“I haven’t any doubt that you took them,” interrupted the man, grimly, “the same as you took the horse.”
“And I only made use of the horse to obtain assistance for him the more quickly,” continued Rod. “I left him stunned by his fall, and he may be dead by this time. He will be soon, anyway, if some one doesn’t go to him, and then you’ll be murderers, that’s what you’ll be.”
“Let us examine this bag that you admit you took from somebody without his permission, and see what it contains,” said the man quietly, paying no heed to the lad’s statement. So saying, he opened the satchel that still hung from Rod’s shoulders. At the sight of its contents he uttered an exclamation of amazement.
“Well, if this don’t beat anything I ever heard of!”
The others crowded eagerly about him.