“I arrest you also,” said the commander to Charlie, who suddenly found a trooper on each side of him. These took him lightly by each arm, while a third seized his bridle.
“Sir!” exclaimed our hero, while the blood rushed to his forehead, “I am not an outlaw!”
“Excuse me,” returned the officer politely, “but my duty is plain. There are a good many gentlemanly outlaws about at present. You are found joining in fight with a notorious band. Until you can clear yourself you must consider yourself my prisoner.—Disarm and bind him.”
For one moment Charlie felt an almost irresistible impulse to fell the men who held him, but fortunately the absurdity of his position forced itself on him, and he submitted, well knowing that his innocence would be established immediately.
“Is not this man one of your band, Jake?” asked the officer quietly.
“Yes, he is,” replied the man with a malevolent grin. “He’s not long joined. This is his first scrimmage with us.”
Charlie was so thunderstruck at this speech that he was led back to the ranch in a sort of dazed condition. As for Dick Darvall, he was rendered speechless, and felt disposed to regard the whole thing as a sort of dream, for his attempted explanations were totally disregarded.
Arrived at the house, Charlie and Jake were locked up in separate rooms, and sentries placed beneath their windows—this in addition to the security of hand-cuffs and roped arms. Then breakfast was prepared for the entire company, and those who had been wounded in the fight were attended to by Hunky Ben—a self-taught surgeon—with Mary and Buttercup to act as dressers.
“I say, Jackson,” observed Darvall, when the worthy ranch-man found leisure to attend to him, “of course you know that this is all nonsense—an abominable lie about my friend Brooke being an outlaw?”
“Of course I do, Dick,” said Jackson, in a tone of sympathy; “an’ you may be cock-sure I’ll do what I can to help ’im. But he’ll have to prove himself a true man, an’ there are some mysteries about him that it puzzles me to think how he’ll clear ’em up.”