Then another hunter heard a fast-approaching car, and uttered a cry of warning:
“Look out for the dogs! Here’s another of those plaguy autos.”
Billy was aware, from his place of concealment, that the three robbers were extremely busy men. They soon had a lantern beside the burst tire, and tools spread about the road. George and the wounded one were jacking up the car so as to get off the old tire and replace it with a new one.
With a sudden shout, the leader of the trio of robbers left the car and bounded toward the ’coon tree. He passed Billy so near that the boy shrank back with an affrighted cry. He thought he had been discovered.
But the man did not stop for Billy Speedwell. Indeed, he probably did not hear the lad’s cry. He had seen the lights of the pursuing automobile at the turn in the road.
He dashed in among the hunters who, with their flaring torches and lanterns and dogs, were gathered about the tree in which the ’coon had taken refuge. The man with the axe had already cut half through the tall trunk.
Without a word, but giving the axeman a strong push to one side, the leader of the thieves seized the axe, wrenching it from the other’s hands. Then, with mighty blows, he set upon the work of felling the tree. The hunters were amazed. They did not know whether it was a joke, or not. But suddenly one observed the object of the stranger.
“Look out, there!” he cried. “You’ll have that tree down across the road.”
And, even as he spoke, with the second motor car still some rods away, and slowing down, the event he had prophesied occurred! With a crash the tree fell. The motor rascal was an excellent woodsman. He had known just how to slant his axe to make the tree fall in the right direction.
As it came down to earth the yelping dogs made a dash for the ’coon, and for some moments there was a lively scrimmage in the brush across the highway; but nobody had paid any attention to this event.