ed.

This seemed to be the opinion of all, including Mr. Perry, and a general
move was made in the direction of the slowly retreating injured spy. They
soon overtook him and threw a flood of illumination about him with their
search-lights, which they had picked up in the dark almost as
instinctively as a grandmother picks up her glasses in the morning.

"Why, he's a boy!"

Bud was the only one present who gave utterance to this discovery aloud,
but the "exclamation" flashed mentally in the head of every other
youthful investigator in the group. As Mr. Perry was not easily
mystified, we must take it for granted that he was not easily astonished,
so that probably he did not feel like giving vent to anything of the
nature of an exclamation.

"Well," said the latter quietly; "we must take this youngster back to the
camp and give him some hospital treatment. Can you walk?" he added,
addressing the victim of Bud's slingshot.

"You don't think I'd be down here if I could, do you?" moaned the fellow
sarcastically. "But just wait till I get over this and I'll fix the
fellow that hit me."

"Let's not waste any time with him here," urged Mr. Perry. "Some of you
boys pick him up carefully, so as not to hurt him, and carry him into the
tent. We'll give him a quizzing there."

All the young members of the Catwhisker party had had first aid
instruction, so that they knew how to lift the injured boy and carry him
with a minimum of pain to the sufferer. A minute later the victim was
lying on one of the cots in the tent, with his captors gathered around
him, undoubtedly more concerned about the mystery of his presence than in
the extent of his injuries.

"No, boys, we mustn't try to get his story from him until we take care of
his wound and see to it that he is resting easy"; Mr. Perry interposed.

Accordingly the wound was examined and found to consist of a very bad
bruise on the side of the right hip. Bud's missile had struck the
intruder at a point where there was little flesh, right on a protruding
ridge of the hip bone, and it was easy to see that the blow must have
been very painful.

"I don't think it's very serious," Mr. Perry remarked after examining the
wound; "but I doubt if this boy will want to be running around very much
for several days. About all we can do is to apply some liniment to the
wound and encourage it, by careful treatment, to heal as rapidly as
possible."

A bottle of liniment was accordingly prod