His younger and mired helper half turned, but it was to find the boy not yet out of the ring. The latter staggered slightly under the blow he had received, and the bark scoop dropped from his hand. He quickly picked it up, however, and sent into the face of his returning foe a deluge of black, blinding muck. The man rubbed his eyes, veered about again and made for the shore.
The irate old man was brandishing his cane, and shouting. He seemed to be censuring his defeated aide, who, dripping and bespattered, stood disgustedly on dry land.
“They’re trying to corner that boy, and he’s too plucky to let them,” decided Hiram. “There goes another stone. Good! it missed, and the boy is safe under cover.”
The lad had slipped behind a tree, but he kept the scoop in his hand. The two men gesticulated and parleyed. Finally the old man pointed toward a little settlement about a mile away. His companion started in that direction. The old man mopped his head with his handkerchief. Then he sat down under the shade of a tree as if exhausted with rage and his unusual exercise.
“He’s sent for help; maybe for the police,” reflected Hiram. “Right or wrong, the boy looks in need of a friend. I’m going to know the ins and outs of this affair.”
So far no one of the three persons in sight had caught a view of the descending machine, so absorbed had they been in the conflict in which they were engaged. At the sound of the snort of the exhaust of the aeroplane, however, the barefooted lad started nervously, and looked up.
The Scout had landed in the middle of a clear spot edged by some bushes. Hiram who had some time since shut off the power, faced the astonished lad not twenty feet away from him.
“Hello!” he hailed, leaping out, and advancing. “What’s the trouble here?”
For a second or two the lad did not speak. The startling appearance of airship and pilot seemed to benumb him. He looked appealingly at Hiram, as though trying to figure out whether his strange and unexpected arrival meant help or harm. Then, something in the friendly face of the newcomer seemed partially to reassure him. His wan face twitched and his lips puckered.
“I’m in trouble,” he said—“terrible trouble.”