ming:

"Jules Garrone, and nabbed by a parcel of boys. Men, the joke is on
us!"

CHAPTER XVII

GALLANT ANDY

"Good morning, Chief!" said the prisoner, with a cool grin.

The Head of the Bloomsbury police force looked so utterly amazed that
Larry and some of his mates could not help laughing.

"Didn't expect to find Jules waiting up for you on the way back, did
you, Chief?" asked Andy, with perhaps a touch of sarcasm in his voice;
for to tell the truth the boy did not have a very high opinion of the
stout man's abilities in the way of thief catching, though liking him
well enough as a genial townsman.

"Well, I confess that I never expected such great good luck," admitted
the other. "And now, boys, tell me just how it happened."

"Oh! he dropped in on us, Chief," Andy went on.

"And liked the accommodation afforded by the Birdsnest so well that he
concluded to stop over," Larry remarked. "Frank here, expected
something of the kind, and got ready to receive visitors."

"You mean he set a trap?" asked the official, looking admiringly at the
party in question.

"Well," Larry drawled, "I guess you could call it that, and not get far
off the road. It had a trigger all right, and when Jules touched this
off a nice heavy plank that was like a log dropped, and pinned him down
on his chest. We found him gasping for breath, and his gun with a
broken lock."

"Gun! Then he was armed, and creeping into your shop!" exclaimed the
other, with a frown toward the grinning and apparently indifferent
prisoner. "That looks bad, now. What would he want to carry a gun
for, if not to injure you boys? And where d'ye suppose he got it at?"

"Oh!" Frank remarked, "he says he entered a farmhouse, and hooked a
suit of old clothes, so he could throw away the striped ones. And at
the same time he helped himself to that old musket, thinking he might
have to hunt game while he hid in the woods."

"Look here, Frank, wasn't you telling me about some villain who fired a
shot up at you boys when you were flying over the Powell woods?" asked
the Chief.

"That's so, and we believe it was Jules, all right," Andy took the
liberty of saying; for when excited he could not be kept still.

"But he wisely declines to commit himself, so there is no proof," Frank
went on. "And at any rate, what's the use bothering about that little
thing? There was no real harm done, except a little scare. And I
think Jules will have about all t