ercy: These
fellows were making the game, and they must take what was coming to
them without whining.

No doubt of it but if the truth were told it would be found that Jack
was pretty white in the face about that time; but his teeth were
pressed hard together, and his heart knew no fear.

Now they were close upon the dummy figures, and Jack got ready to give
the signal that would cause a movement above. But he expected to first
see the leap made, so that Jimmie would have a better chance to drop on
the back of his man.

It was at this most intense moment, when Jack's nerves were all on
edge, that a sudden sound burst forth.

"Ker-choo!"

Jimmie had been almost choked from time to time with the smoke from the
fire, and as luck would have it he broke out in a loud sneeze just as
the two men jumped forward.

CHAPTER XII.

"LUCKY JACK!"

"Go!" cried Jack.

And Jimmie went.

Jack had seen the two men spring upon the blanket-covered dummies, and
knew the cheat would be instantly discovered. A delay of three seconds
just then would mean trouble all around.

Had that unfortunate break on Jimmie's part come about earlier, it must
have played havoc with all Jack's cleverly arranged plans. But the men
were even in the act of jumping and could not stop to investigate just
then.

Before one of them, who was wrestling with the blanket and trying to
sprawl all over the unresisting form beneath it, could grasp the
situation, bang! came a heavy body down between his shoulders, with a
force that made him grunt and flatten out like a pancake.

"Hands up! You are under arrest!" shouted Jack, as he brought his
shotgun on a level with the head of the second man, just as the other
tried to scramble to his knees after learning of the cheat under the
blanket he had assaulted.

Jack was taking a leaf from the police book, and applying it to
advantage. He knew just how thrilling those words had sounded in the
ears of himself and Jimmie and believed in passing them along.

Jimmie, by the way, was engaged in rapping the back of his captive's
head with the stout little cudgel he had picked up. At the same time
he kept threatening to add to the force of the taps if the other showed
any inclination to resist.

"Do you surrender?" demanded the boy who held the gun.

"I guess we do. There don't seem to be anything else for us, the worse
luck!" growled the fellow who crouched there on his knees and stared
into the tw