mer enemy.

"Are you hurt badly?" he asked.

"I reckon not," replied Sparwick, with a painful effort. "I was purty
well squeezed, but I'm gettin' my breath back now. The critter hit me a
lick here, but it ain't no account."

He pointed to his left shoulder, from which the coat and shirt had been
partially torn away.

"I gave you up for dead," said Jerry. "It was a close shave."

"Close ain't no word for it," declared Sparwick. "You saved my life,
young feller, an' I ain't the man to furget it. Words ain't much in my
line, or I might say I was sorry for certain things. Howsomever, here's
what I took from that pardner of your'n."

He produced the watch and pocketbook, and handed them to the boys.

"Yes; they're Brick's," said Jerry. "But didn't you see anything of him
yourself? He started after you this morning with two men. Hamp and I
followed a couple of hours later. Somehow or other we lost their tracks,
and got onto yours."

"Yes; I seen them all," replied Sparwick, in a peculiar tone. "Your
pardner is in a bad way."

"What do you mean?" cried Hamp and Jerry, in one breath.

Sparwick hesitated an instant to get his wind. Then he related, just as
the reader already knows it, the assault on Brick, and the lad's
subsequent abduction.

"How I come ter see it was this way," he explained, in conclusion. "I
traveled purty fast arter leavin' the Mallowgash, and when I reached
that clearing back yonder, I was nearly done out. So I dropped down in
the timber an' bushes for a rest. I hadn't been there more'n half an
hour when the two men an' the lad come along. Then happened what I just
finished tellin' you. The affair was none of my business, and I couldn't
a-helped the young fellow any if I'd wanted to. I struck back in this
direction, an' first thing I knowed, I broke through the crust, an'
found myself under ground. I was huntin' the way out when you fellers
tumbled in."

The effect of Sparwick's story upon Jerry and Hamp may be better
imagined than described.

"I thought there was something wrong with those men," exclaimed Hamp,
wrathfully. "They've been dogging us ever since we came into the woods."

"But why did they carry Brick off with them after they had all his
money?" asked Jerry. "That's the strange part of the affair."

"It beats me, too," admitted Sparwick. "They had his money, sure enough,
fur I seen them countin' it over. Mebbe they took him along for their
own safety, an' mebbe there's a wors