"What's this?" said the driver anxiously. "Who could need to be driving up here, and at dusk, too?"
"You're easily rattled, Dodger," sneered Cyrus the Poet. "Most probably it's the car of a local doctor, called out to some yokel with a stomach-ache."
"I'm not so sure," the driver said. "Things don't look healthy. I vote we hop it. The swag's gone—the car's crocked—it's bad luck to hang around here."
He proved a true prophet. Just as he finished speaking the other car glided swiftly into view, and was upon them before they could stir. Half a dozen men seemed literally to jump out of it upon the shoulders of the trio. They were men, too, of powerful north-country build, almost ox-like in their strength, and the three thieves had about as much chance amongst them as rats in the mouths of trained dogs. They had time to make only the faintest show of fight before they were lifted bodily into the capacious police-car, with hefty constables practically sitting on them to keep them quiet.
The game was up, and they resigned themselves to the inevitable. An inkling of the way in which they had been trapped dawned on them as the car started downhill, for from behind them there came the sound of a boyish cheer, which raised mocking echoes among the hills. And at least one of them—Cyrus the Poet, to wit, whose head was jammed uncomfortably against the door—caught a sight of a posse of schoolboys jumping joyfully down the hill, so that the secret of the slashed tyres, and the sudden police raid, was laid bare to him in the depths of his humiliation.
To the succour of the two drugged men the police-doctor came in his own car, wherein were also Flenton and the three swift-footed heroes who had raced into town at Robin's bidding. All the Merry Men went willingly back to assist in lifting the still-stupefied policemen, and, then, forming fours, they marched down the hill in a singing procession, and entered the school-yard with hoarse but happy shouts of triumph.
Thus, by a chain of fortunate circumstances, it had fallen to the lot of Foxenby's boys themselves to avenge the burglary at the school, and Old Man Wykeham's delight almost choked his utterance as he proudly announced to the assembled Foxes what Robin Arkness and his Merry Men had done. He promised them another special holiday at a reasonable interval after Shrove Tuesday, and made no protest against a particularly boisterous dormitory supper which the Juniors of both Houses arranged in honour of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
"There'll be a trial now," said Roger to Dick, "and you, Robin Hood, and Fluffy Jim will be the star turns in the witness-box."
"By the ears of the school donkey, I'll be nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Dick. "You're deliberately trying to put the wind up me, Roger, you old fraud!"
"'Pon honour, Dick, I'm as serious as the Judge will be on that solemn occasion. They're bound to subpoena you as a witness. Probably I, too, will have to go."