“Yes, I thought you’d turn up again,” repeated Diker. Jerry felt the man’s hand tighten on his arm. “You twins seem to have a habit of popping into sight when least expected. The question is, which one are you?”

Jerry did not answer.

“Well, that’s easily found out,” his captor went on. “I don’t know how or when you got away, but if you were with Burk when the dogs made him take to water, your legs ought to be wet. They’re not. Therefore, we’ll get your brother when we get Burk.” He raised his voice to speak to the man at Jerry’s left. “See, Warden—I told you this was one of ’em. Good thing I spotted him when he was topping that fence, eh? Well, now Frank can step on the gas. The others may be ahead of us, or they may be behind, but sooner or later, we’ll get ’em!”
184

The jolly-looking man at Jerry’s left now put in a word. “What was the big idea, son?” he asked. “I’d think you were old enough to know better than to trifle with the law, and help a convict get away. All your leaders back there at the camp are worried to death about you kids. Didn’t you think of that? Where were you trying to go?”

“Anyone would have done the same thing!” Jerry burst out at last. “Burk told us he wasn’t guilty, and we wanted to help him!”

The jolly man smiled, looking jollier than ever. “My boy, I’ve been a prison warden for twelve years, and I’ve never had a man in my charge who’d admit he was guilty! Innocent men, every one of them—to hear them tell it.”

Jerry, in his efforts to show Burk’s innocence, forgot himself. “Let him stay free a little longer, and he’ll prove he’s not guilty!”

“Oh, he will, will he?” the man said sharply. “How will he do that?”

The boy realized that he had said more than enough. He sank back in his seat. But Diker, it seemed, was not through with his questions.

“How’d you get down here to town so quickly?” he asked. Jerry shook his head. “Won’t, tell anything, eh? Well, we’ll find out all about it later. I don’t think you know where the others are anyway. You’re just like the skinny lad we treed up in the hills.”
185

“Sherlock?”

“That his name? He wouldn’t say a word to us—all he did was sneeze. I left Harris to take him along back. We got him, and now we’ve got you—and the rest of the crowd can’t be far away.”

The car slowed to a halt at a crossroads, where a motorcycle policeman in the khaki uniform of a state officer sat vigilantly astride his machine. Diker jumped out, and ran across to the man, hailing him as he came.

“See anything?” he asked.

The man in khaki shook his head. “Nothing unusual. I’d swear they haven’t come along this way.”

“Well, keep your eyes open,” he was admonished. “That plane up there will keep them from bolting toward the hills again. So long!”

Diker jumped back into his seat, and again the car slid forward. Twice more, as the miles went by, it stopped at the side of the road, and Diker spoke to men who seemed to be posted on guard. Once, they passed a car drawn up by the side of the road. It was a queer-looking affair, Jerry noted, with a canvas top like a prairie schooner, and a chubby little man who looked like a foreigner was pumping up a tire. They drove by this roadside scene so rapidly, however, that Jerry could not make out any details.
186

Some time in the middle of the afternoon, the big car drew up in front of the post-office of a little hamlet about fifteen miles south of Wallistown. The driver got out and entered a small restaurant whose sign proclaimed it the “Apple Hill Cafe—Tourists a Speciality”; he returned with an armful of sandwiches and four bottles of pop. Diker waved to Jerry to share this sketchy repast, and the boy was too famished to refuse, since his only previous nourishment that day had been a few elderberries, hours and hours before. He put away three ham sandwiches in almost no time at all, and started to demolish one of the large apples which the driver, whose name was Frank something-or-other, had brought out in his pockets.

“Well, Warden,” said Diker conversationally, taking a long pull at his bottle of pop, “they surely couldn’t have gotten this far down in the time since we know they got ashore up by Wallistown. Either they’re off the road altogether, or else we’ve slipped up somehow. I guess we’ll have to turn back. Shame to make you waste time on the chase this way, but you know how it is.”
187

“Burk used to live down this way, didn’t he?” asked the jolly-faced warden. “He’ll know his way around now, if he’s gotten this far. No; I don’t mind taking the time to end off this affair properly. I’m curious to find out what our friend Burk is trying to do.”

“If you’re ready to start back then, we’ll go.” Diker motioned to the driver, who circled around the Apple Hill Post-Office, and the car started on the return journey.

About two miles out of Apple Hill, Frank slammed on the brakes. A man stood in the center of the road, waving at them. Jerry recognized him as one of the watchers they had spoken to on the journey down; a farmerish-looking man who seemed to be some sort of constable. Without delay, he ran to the side of the car, and hurriedly addressed the prison guard. “Jest got a telephone call from the police-station in Wallistown,” was his message. &ldq............