icate throat. Like a
vampire, Buck sprang from the third stair, landing on the man's back,
his legs worked inside the man's elbows, pinioning the scoundrel's arms
back like a trussed turkey, his arms went round the bull-like neck,
and his tough young fingers closed on a sinewy throat. He clung to the
creature's back like an octopus, while they rolled over and over, and
the terrified girl struggled up, regaining her breath.

"Quick! quick! Miss Connie! The telephone! The police! Ring! Ring!"
Buck managed to shout. Then, "Untie the doctor's hands and feet!"

But the burglar's arms were now gripping behind him, and digging, cruel
fingers pierced Buck's flesh. But the boy never relaxed his octopus
hold. The tighter the big nails clutched, the tighter his own boyish
fingers stiffened on the man's throat.

An eternity seemed to elapse. He saw Miss Connie fly to the telephone,
then her weak little hands struggled with the ropes on her father's
wrists. But before she could begin to loose them, four gigantic men in
blue uniforms were climbing in the open surgery window to encounter a
sight not soon to be forgotten. The doctor, bound and bruised, lay on
the floor; beside him, a man rapidly regaining consciousness and sitting
up in a dazed condition; a young girl, with brutal red marks about her
throat; and on the floor at her feet a man with a boy clinging to his
back like a barnacle to a boat, his young arms and bare legs binding the
fellow like ropes. It took those police officers but the twinkling of an
eye to have the two burglars handcuffed and cowed at the point of their
revolvers, and to hear the whole story of the rescued doctor.

"But who's this little duffer?" asked the inspector, gazing at Buck.
"Why, look at his knees and feet! They're dripping blood!"

"Got that shinning up the creeper and the stone-wall into the bathroom,"
said Buck, feeling terribly awkward to be seen in such a plight before
Miss Connie. So he stammered out his explanation, from the moment he had
awakened to this very instant.

"Dropped the Damascus bowl on his head, did you?" gasped the doctor.
Then, as he looked at Buck as if he saw him for the first time, he
beheld his bleeding feet and torn knees. "Officers," said the great:
surgeon, "you asked who he is. He's our boy! He's _my_ boy! I never had
a son of my own, but--but--Buckney goes to college next year, and he
goes as my adopted son. This night has shown me what he's made of."

Then,