"Are you--are you Mr. Jordan?" the youngster panted, running up to Frank.
"Yes," nodded Frank.
"Please, sir, quick--there's a man in the old cabin on Greenlee's farm. He wants Ned Foreman to come right straight to him. He's all cut up and bleeding. He's dying. The boy yonder said you'd get Ned Foreman for me."
"Who is he?" demanded Frank, interested and startled.
"I don't know, only he said he must see Ned Foreman, because he won't last long. He's in an awful state. He's in an awful state. He just hollers and yells, and he's smashing a great big bracelet with shining stones in it."
"Jordan!"
"Hi--don't miss it!" Whiz!
Just past Frank's head flew a fly from the bat Frank had not turned in time. But he heeded not the yells, "Deserted his colors!" "Run away again!"
or the fact that his neglect had sent two of Banbury's cohorts home.
Frank knew at once that the man the excited boy spoke of was either Jem or Dan. The allusion to a bracelet had started him on a vivid run, the boy keeping breathlessly by his side, panting:
"I was passing the old cabin, when I heard some one groaning on the inside.
Then the man told me to get Ned Foreman."
The little messenger led Frank straight to the hut and slipped down to the doorstep almost exhausted, while his companion rushed through the open doorway.
The man Dan lay on a heap of straw, silent and helpless. His clothing was stained with blood. Frank at once ascertained that he was still alive, but he had fainted from weakness.
He went out to the little fellow on the doorstep.
"What's your name?" asked Frank.
"It's Lem."
"Well, you're a grand little fellow," said Frank. "You've done a good deal already, but I want you to run to the nearest farmhouse and tell the farmer that he must get here right away to move a dying man to a doctor at Bellwood."
"Yes, sir," nodded the obliging little fellow eagerly.
"Tell him I'll pay all the expenses, and yours, too, Lem, as soon as we get through with this business."
The boy darted away. Frank re-entered the hut. As he did so his foot kicked some object, and it jangled across the rough board floor.
Frank picked it up with some eagerness and satisfaction. It was the bracelet that Lem had described--"with shining stones in it."
Our hero was a good deal excited as he examined the object in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket with quite a thrill of satisfaction. He then went closer to the suffering Dan.
The man seemed to have dropped into a deep daze or sleep. Frank realized that he could do nothing for him until he was removed to some place where skilled surgical aid could be summoned.
"It's wonderful," mused Frank, as he went outside, impatient and anxious for the return of his messenger. "This is certainly the bracelet that I've had so much worry about. I never saw it before, but it must be the one stolen from Lemuel Mace. How does it happen, though, that Dan has it here?
Why is it all battered up? Where is Jem? Why wasn't it sold to the man, Staggers? Say, here's a big puzzle, but I've got the bracelet, and this man Dan can be made to explain all about it when he gets his senses back."
Frank certainly had some perplexing thoughts as to the peculiar situation of the moment. He could only theorize what had happened.
The way he figured it out was that Jem had been unable to make any bargain with the man Staggers and dispose of the bracelet. He had come back to the hut to report this fact to Dan. They must have had a quarrel over it, Frank decided. Jem had probably been beaten off. Not, however, until he had pretty badly bruised up his opponent. The bracelet must have got battered in the struggle for its possession, or Dan, in the delirium which the farmer boy had described to Frank, had banged it about, not knowing what he was doing.
Frank paced up and down in front of the hut, turning all these thoughts over in his mind, and really anxious about the condition of Dan, counting the minutes and hoping for the speedy return of his messenger with aid. He was walking slowly on his tiresome patrol, when he heard a rustle in the bushes. He turned, somewhat startled. Before he could get fully around a brisk hand slapped him sharply on the shoulder, with the words:
"Hello, you--glad I've found you!"
Frank drew suspiciously away from a lad about his own age, and a total stranger to him. He was well dressed, and had a keen pair of eyes and a pleasant, rather quizzical expression of face.
Frank was on nettles for fear Jem might return, and at first feared that the boy might be some emissary of Brady or his recent kidnapers.
"Don't know me?" questioned the lad, smiling boldly and in an extremely friendly way into Frank's face.
"Well, I know you," retorted the other. "Here, Frank Jordan, of Bellwood Academy, shake," and he extended his hand.
"Who are you?" inquired Frank, only feebly returning the hearty handshake of the stranger.
"I am your everlasting debtor--friend, slave!" declared the lad vehemently.
"See here; that night, or, rather, morning, dark hallway--two officers--nabbed you, took you for me, and I got away."
"O--oh!" exclaimed Frank slowly, and with a decided shock. "I remember you now."
"Thought you would," nodded the lad briskly. "You don't seem a bit glad to see me, but I am to see you."
Frank did not say anything in reply to this. In fact, the boy who had just revealed his identity was not exactly welcome to Frank just at that moment.
The latter remembered what the policeman, Hawkes, had said about him--that he was an escaped convict, with a reward out for his arrest. That did not speak well for the fellow. Then, too, Frank did not fancy the proximity of such a person, with a diamond bracelet in his possession presumably worth a great deal of money.
"How did you come to find me here?" demanded our hero with blunt suspicion.
"Didn't--just ran across you. But I was on my way to find you."
"Where?"
"At the academy."
"How did you know I belonged to the academy?" challenged Frank.
"Why, didn't I hear you mention the place and tell your name to the policeman?"
"Yes, that's so," admitted Frank. "But why did you want to see me?"
"To thank you."
"For what?"
"For saving me from arrest."
"Oh, then you admit that you are what the policeman said?"
"What was that?"