"But," gasps Brookhouse, "you can not; you have no power."
"No power," mocks Jim Long. "We'll see about that! It may be unparliamentary, gentlemen, but you should not object to that. If you give us any trouble, we will convince you that we have inherited a little brief authority."
Ten minutes later we have carried out our programme. The two prisoners are safely housed in the hidden asylum for stolen horses, with Jim Long as guard within, and Gerry as sentinel without, and I, seated in the light buggy from which I have unceremoniously dragged Arch Brookhouse, am driving his impatient roadster southward, in the wake of the honest coal wagons.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
It is long past midnight. A preternatural stillness broods over the four corners where the north and south road, two miles north from Clyde, intersects the road running east and west, that bears westward toward the coal beds and the river.
There are no houses within sight of these corners, and very few trees; but the northeastern corner is bounded by what the farmers call a "brush fence," an unsightly barricade of rails, interwoven with tall, ragged, and brambly brush, the cuttings, probably, from some rank-growing hedge.
The section to the southwest is bordered by a prim hedge, thrifty and green, evenly trimmed, and so low that a man could leap across it with ease.
And now the silence is broken by the sound of wheels coming from the direction of Clyde; swift running wheels that soon bring their burden to the four corners, and then come to a sudden halt.