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"You can't play that game on me. Get out of that at once, or I'll riddle you with buckshot. In ten seconds I shoot." It was not a time to hesitate or parley. The plank dropped into place, and by a reckless swing and drop Hocker landed fairly in the center of the boat, very nearly capsizing it. Abner dropped the oars, and the current whirled the craft swiftly down the wasteway.
The heat was intense, but he managed to get near enough to snatch the bag. One end was badly scorched. He suddenly spied Hocker's gun, and knowing how the owner valued it, he made another rush and carried it off in triumph. Thus laden down he tottered across the floor in imminent fear of dropping through to the wasteway, and overwhelmed at times by the suffocating smoke and fiery sparks.
Keep him talking as long as you can, and meanwhile me and this lad will slip up the wasteway in the boat and try to get the lads free. If anything goes wrong, whistle." Jeffries was quite satisfied to take the part assigned to him. He moved off in one direction, while Hocker and Ned took the other. Bug was left alone in the bushes.
The closet in which the boys were confined was built right against the rear end of the mill. Its dimensions were ample eight feet long and about four wide. Underneath was the wasteway, but its usual roar was now subdued by an influx of water from the flooded creek. Ned had been quietly examining the situation during the day, and had noted the shaky condition of the floor planks.
Jeffries was already in conversation with Moxley when his companions reached the wasteway. They could hear the voices of the two men indistinctly. Hocker motioned Ned to the rear seat beside Abner; then seizing the oars he pulled the boat swiftly into the deep shadows under the mill. The next step was a more difficult one.
He stammered out a few inarticulate words of gratitude to Hocker and Jeffries and then approached Ned. "This is your doin'," he said brokenly. "You saved me from goin' to jail. I shan't forget it " He choked and broke off short. Ned drew him down the wasteway to a little clump of bushes, out of earshot of the others.
At the sluiceway he found a well trodden footpath, and followed it along the rear side of the mill, and thence by the base of the hill to a wagon road which began abruptly at the edge of the wasteway, where there was no doubt a fording to the opposite neck of land.
They searched the wasteway just as Jeffries and Hocker landed from the boat, pushing Moxley before them, and followed by Bug. The ruffian's hands were already manacled. With the exception of dripping clothes neither of the men seemed the worse for their struggle and subsequent fall. "They were still locked together when we pulled them from the water," said Jeffries.
Further investigation showed Ned that the saw mill abutted on the corner of the dam, and that a narrow sluiceway conducted the water to the machinery. He could hear the splash and gurgle of the torrent as it swept under the rotting timbers of the mill and rushed on to freedom through the wasteway beyond.
Bug's appearance was the signal for a most outrageous burst of profanity and threats from Moxley, and when Jeffries had finally subdued the ruffian by strong measures, the whole party crossed the wasteway, and moved up to the farmhouse, which was half a mile distant. Mrs.
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