“What makes you think so, Hugh?” asked Harold, apparently not so certain in his own mind, and wishing to be reassured.
“If it was that,” said the scout master, “you’d hear men and boys shouting mad dog at the top of their voices. With that cry, there never was a time when people kept on flocking toward the scene, you know that, Harold!”
“That’s a fact, Hugh, certainly it is!” declared the other, in a relieved tone. “Every lasting one of them would run the other way as if he were crazy. As you say, they’re pushing up now toward the place where all that loud talking is coming from.”
“Seems to me they’re beginning to move this way, too,” remarked Arthur. “If that’s so, we’ll soon find out what all the trouble is about.”
Hugh saw this for himself. He wondered whether the excitement could have any connection with Billy Worth’s mission regarding the breaking of the strange ties between the medicine fakir and Cale.
This idea flashed into his head when he fancied he saw a boy dressed in khaki in the midst of the throng, apparently dodging about, as though he might be concerned in the row. Before Hugh could be sure as to his identity the crowd had once more swallowed him up; but it gave the scout master a little spell of uneasiness.
He found himself imagining all sorts of wild things. Possibly Billy, in his earnest desire to help the boy who was an unwilling assistant in the schemes of Old Doc Merritt, had gone beyond the bounds of prudence; perhaps he had even put himself in danger of being arrested on some charge formulated by the fakir!
Hugh had almost decided to start straight for the scene of confusion, so as to learn the worst, when all of a sudden the tenor of the cries changed. They were now of a more angry nature, such as a reckless mob would utter when chasing after some hapless fugitive.
Looking more closely, Hugh saw a figure burst into view. Many hands tried in vain to seize upon the fleeing boy, but with wonderful agility he seemed to avoid them all, and came madly racing and dodging toward the camp of the scouts.
“Why, looky there, Hugh!” cried Arthur, in surprise, “it’s one of our scouts, as sure as you live! Andy Wallis at that! I wonder what under the sun it all means, and what he can have been doing now!”