“By hooky, Jake! One of those kids! How on earth?”
“Never mind questions now. I’ll explain it later. Help me get him inside. Hurry now. The other kid’s gone alter the police.”
“Jove! How did they locate us?”
“Don’t know. Accident, I guess. I ran right into ’em as I was coming out of the doorway next door.”
While they were speaking the two men dragged Jack into the room and flung him on a rough bed in one corner of the place. Already huddled miserably on the wretched pallet was the figure of Ralph Ingersoll. His face was pale and scared, and he had a bruise on his forehead, received the day before when he had gallantly attempted to fight off the two rascals in the yellow auto.
“It’s Jack Chadwick!” he exclaimed, as the men flung their unconscious burden down; “how did he come here? What dreadful thing have you done?”
“You shut up,” warned Jake Rook savagely; “listen, now, Rad.”
So saying he launched into an account of just how he had encountered the two boys and how he had tricked Jack into walking into a trap. While he was doing this Ralph, despite the risk he ran of being brutally treated by the men, got some water from a tin jug in one corner of the room and bathed Jack’s forehead. But the boy’s eyes remained closed, and his heavy breathing showed that he was far from recovering consciousness.
“The question now is, what’s the next best move?” queried Radcliff, as Jake Rook concluded his recital.
“Well, we’d best lie quietly here for a while. You see the police will be in the next house in a few minutes. They’ll search it and maybe this one, too.”