CHAPTER XXIV
SOMETHING WRONG
Dave was a good deal disheartened. It was several hours after his meeting with the two persons he wished most to avoid. And now Dave was a prisoner.
He sat crowded up on the back seat of a rickety old wagon, covered with canvas top and sides, and boarded up at the back. Beside him was his foxy-eyed, ferret-faced guardian, old Silas Warner. On the front seat, acting as driver, was the Brookville sheriff. Around Dave’s wrist was what is called a “come-along,” or rope handcuff, its two crossed stay pieces of wood being held tightly by the watchful, sleepless Warner.
The way this had all come about seemed like a dream to Dave. The instant that his guardian and the sheriff had recognized the runaway they were seeking, they had pounced down upon poor Dave like hungry wolves.
Silas Warner held our hero while the sheriff hurried out into the main room of the station. He spoke a few words to the police clerk, and then Dave was led out of the place, both men holding tightly to him, and soon found himself in a room in a cheap boarding house.
Dave had tried to expostulate, to explain. His jubilant captors had refused to listen to him. He had frantically begged of them to allow him to send word to some friends, to take a simple message to the police lieutenant.
“Don’t trust him for a minute, Daniel Jackson,” his guardian shouted to the sheriff. “You know what a slippery one he is.”
“But it’s important,” pleaded Dave. “A fellow robbed me. He must be caught.”