he came to presently.

"What struck me?" he asked.

"Oh, nothin'," replied Bud, derisively. "The loft up thar's full of air,
an' it blowed on you, thet's all."

Buell got up, and began walking around.

"Bill, go out an' fetch in some long poles," he said.

When Bill returned with a number of sharp, bayonet-like pikes I knew
the game was all up for me. Several of the men began to prod through the
thin covering of dry brush. One of them reached me, and struck so hard
that I lurched violently.

That was too much for the rickety loft floor. It was only a bit of brush
laid on a netting of slender poles. It creaked, rasped, and went down
with a crash. I alighted upon somebody, and knocked him to the floor.
Whoever it was, seized me with iron hands. I was buried, almost
smothered, in the dusty mass. My captor began to curse cheerfully, and I
knew then that Herky-Jerky had made me a prisoner.

XV. THE FIGHT

Herky hauled me out of the brush, and held me in the light. The
others scrambled from under the remains of the loft, and all viewed me
curiously.

"Kid, you ain't hurt much?" queried Buell, with concern.

I would have snapped out a reply, but I caught sight of Dick's pale face
and anxious eyes.

"Ken," he called, with both gladness and doubt in his voice, "you look
pretty good--but that blood.... Tell me, quick!"

"It's nothing, Dick, only a little cut. The bullet just ticked my arm."

Whatever Dick's reply was it got drowned in Herky-Jerky's long explosion
of strange language. Herky was plainly glad I had not been badly hurt. I
had already heard mirth, anger, disgust, and fear in his outbreaks, and
now relief was added. He stripped off my coat, cut off the bloody sleeve
of my shirt, and washed the wound. It was painful and bled freely, but
it was not much worse than cuts from spikes when playing ball. Herky
bound it tightly with a strip of my shirt-sleeve, and over that my
handkerchief.

"Thar, kid, thet'll stiffen up an' be sore fer a day or two, but it
ain't nothin'. You'll soon be bouncin' clubs offen our heads."

It was plain that Herky--and the others, for that matter, except
Buell--thought more of me because I had wielded a club so vigorously.

"Look at thet lump, kid," said Bud, bending his head. "Now, ain't thet a
nice way to treat a feller? It made me plumb mad, it did."

"I'm likely to hurt somebody yet," I declared.

They looked at me curiously. Buell raised his face with a queer smil