“What do you know ’bout him?” Turner asked, suspiciously, irritated by her reproof. “I hev never said he didn’t b’long up ter the village. I reckon, now, you must hev thought ’cause he air a revnoo spy that he’d be goin’ ’roun’ through the mountings a-hollerin’ out his bizness ter the owls. I reckon you must hev thought that. Ef he ain’t a revnoo, why war he standin’ with his head agin’ the cabin a-listenin’?” Browning groaned again, and moved. “He ain’t so much killed ez he mout be!” Turner declared. “That club didn’t ketch him squar’. He dodged, an’ his shoulder got most o’ it.” “You’re not goin’ ter strike him ag’in!” Nell screamed, clutching Turner by the arm. “Who said ez how I war goin’ ter?” he growled, shaking her off. “Yer ole dad’ll do that quick ernuff when he gits back. He’s out now a-aimin’ an’ a-contrivin’ fer a safe plan ter git at this feller, an’ when he gits back, an’ finds that I’ve got him hyar, he’ll be plum tickled out o’ one fit inter fifty!” He stooped toward Bruce. “What air you a-goin’ ter do to him, Sam Turner?” Nell demanded, her eyes blazing with a dangerous light. Turner caught her and hurled her from him. “Will you quit a-naggin’ of me, Nell Thornton? I’m a-goin’ ter drag him inter t’other room, an’ tie him up fer yer ole dad ter look at when he gits back. I ’low I’ll hev ter tell him, too, that you’ve acted clean crazy over the feller.” There was no answer to this fling, and Turner, lifting Bruce by the shoulders, dragged him into the adjoining room, the only remaining room of the cabin, with the exception of the garret. When he had done this, he hunted up a piece of rope, with which he securely tied Browning’s hands and feet. Then he deliberately relighted his pipe, took down a long rifle from its rack, and, seating himself in the doorway in a rude, hickory-bottomed chair, he rested the rifle across his knees, and stared moodily off over the ridges, on which the moonlight now fell with silvery radiance. CHAPTER VI—NELL RETURNS A KINDNESS In the little room where Sam Turner had dragged him, Bruce came back at last to the land of sentient things. The moonlight, streaming through a crack in the chinked wall, fell on his white face. His head was racked with splitting pains, and a dull ache made itself unpleasantly felt in his shoulder. When he sought to move his hands and feet, he found that they were tied. Then memory awakened, and he stared about at the cabin walls, trying to determine where he was, and just what had befallen him. A heavy snore drew his attention, and he beheld the form of a man stretched across the doorway of his room. There was a rifle by the man’s side, and he had evidently placed himself there to guard against any attempt at escape. All this was startling enough to Bruce Browning. “And Merriwell! I was not able to get to him to warn him of his danger! I wonder what has befallen him?”