"He got away, but not until I had let him have that tar brush right in the neck," answered Sam. "Hullo, so you have captured old Crabby, eh? That's good." "Surely you do not intend to--ahem--keep me a prisoner," remarked Josiah Crabtree, in a voice which he tried in vain to steady. "That's just what we do intend to do," answered Dick. "You'll march right to the Cedarville lock-up with us." While Dick and Sam guarded the prisoner, Tom ran back for his torn coat and other garments, and also for the rope. When he returned Crabtree's hands were bound and the cadets told him to move along. He was searched, and a pistol was taken from him. Crabtree went along most unwillingly. Once he refused to budge, but Dick showed the pistol, and that settled his stubbornness, and he went along as willingly as a lamb. On the outskirts of Cedarville the party met Chief Burger and Detective Trigger. "So you have one of them, eh?" cried the chief. "Very good, very good indeed. Turn him over to me and I will take him straight to headquarters." "You must be careful that he doesn't get away," said Dick. "Just so, lad; I will be. No one ever escaped from me, not much! Come on, sir!" And he caught Josiah Crabtree by the arm. "This is awful!" groaned the former teacher. "And right here in Cedarville, too, where everybody knows me!" "You should have thought of those things before, Mr. Crabtree," said Dick, his heart softening a little, now that he saw the man was beginning to break down. "What will my friends, and the profession at large, say?" and Crabtree shook his head bitterly. "You have only yourself to blame," put in Tom. He had not forgotten how Crabtree had threatened him but a short while before. Suddenly the former teacher's last drop of courage seemed to desert him and, deadly pale, he sank on his knees. "Spare me, boys, spare me! For the sake of my family and my friends, spare me!" he moaned. "I didn't know you had a family," put in Sam. "My relatives--my poor, dear, distant relatives," replied Crabtree, hardly aware of what he was saying. "Spare me for their sakes, and I will reward you well." "The law must take its course, Mr. Crabtree," said Dick. He turned to Chief Burger. "Take him, and Tom can go with you, to make the charge for us and for Mrs. Stanhope. I think Detective Trigger had better come with Sam and me to hunt for Dan Baxter." So it was arranged, and soon Crabtree was walking into Cedarville with the chief of police on one side of him and Tom on the other. The sight of a man being placed under arrest was an unusual one, and soon a crowd began to follow the three. "It's Mr. Crabtree that used to teach at Putnam Hall," said one. "My, but ain't he a sight." "Must have tried to get away by jumping into the lake," suggested another. "What's he arrested for?" asked a third. Nobody in the crowd knew, and consequently all followed to the police headquarters.