[CHAPTER XVIII]
TELLS OF AN ADVENTURE IN A HUT
Tom scrambled to his feet, Barry retreated, still barking and growling furiously, with the hair on his neck and along his back standing straight up, and the newcomer stumbled through the doorway, wiping his face, and peering nervously about in the half-light.
“Who’s here?” he muttered. “Mind your dog, can’t yer? Think I want to be bit?”
There was no answer. The boys were looking at each other with wide eyes. Then, quietly, Bob stole to the door and pulled it to. Dan seized Barry in his arms.
“A wet night,” observed Dan politely.
“Wet!” muttered the new arrival angrily. He was rubbing the water from his eyes, and striving to get a look at the other occupants of the hut. “I’m nigh drowned, I am! Wet, says you!”
“Come up to the fire,” continued Nelson, drawing back into the shadows as though to make room. Then Dan handed the dog to Tom and edged around the other side of the stove. Bob had left the door, and now, as the newcomer shuffled toward the stove, casting wary, suspicious glances into the shadows where the boys hovered, he crept around back of him. As noiselessly as he moved, however, the other heard, and started to turn. But he was too late. Bob made a diving tackle that pinioned the man’s arms to his sides, and together they crashed to the floor, Bob uppermost. In a twinkle Nelson and Dan were beside him, and the man underneath might well have cried “Down!” Barry, gurgling and yelping, struggled and fought in Tom’s arms, and the noise was deafening for a moment, the captive contributing not a little to the sum of it. Then,
“Hand me a couple of towels, Tom,” called Bob, and Tom, dropping Barry, fished the desired articles from his crowded pockets. They weren’t very generous towels, but they served their present purpose. The man was flopped, fighting hard, over on to his face, and his hands were tied securely behind him. Then Dan arose gingerly from his struggling legs, and the second towel was applied neatly at his ankles.
“Now another towel, Tommy, or—hold on! A pair of socks’ll do just as well,” said Bob.