As it was, he easily calculated the indignation and resentment of the
haughty village magnate who was given to outbursts of wrath which
carried all before him.
"You've spoiled my Fourth," began Bart in a tumult. "I'll spoil your--"
"Cut for it, fellows! they're coming for us!"
"They" were the village officers. Bart had made a jump towards Dale
Wacker, but the latter had faded into the vortex of pell-mell fugitives
rushing away downhill to hiding.
Bart put after them, trying to single out the author of the scurvy joke
that he knew had serious trouble at the end of it.
"Hold on!" gasped a breathless voice.
"Don't stop me!" shouted Bart, trying to tear loose from a frantic grip.
"Oh, it's you--what do you want?"
He halted to survey the person who detained him--the man who haunted the
freight tracks--to whom he had given money earlier in the evening.
"Come, quick!" the man panted. "Express shed--where your father
is--trouble. Don't wait--not a minute."
"See here," challenged Bart, instantly startled into a new tremor of
anxiety, "what do you mean?"
But the forlorn roustabout could not be coherent.
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