“One was Jack Pender,” replied the watchman, and Jerry nodded his head. Well he knew Pender, an unscrupulous crony of Noddy’s, who had, more than once, made trouble for the motor boys.
“And who was the other?” Ned wanted to know.
“He was a stranger,” said Sud. “An old man, with a long white beard, and a peculiar scar on his jaw.”
“It was shaped like the letter L as near as I could make out.”
“What’s that?” cried Jerry. “Like the letter L, you say? And an old man, with a white beard? Yet it’s hardly possible that it can be he----”
“The old hermit of Lost Lake,” answered Jerry musingly. “You know, fellows, he had just such a scar; but what would he be doing here, especially in company with Noddy Nixon? No, it can’t be!”
“I don’t know what sort of a man you’re speaking of,” went on Sud, “but this man seemed to know you. He spoke of Bob and Ned, and said he now owed so much to you that he could never repay it. He added that if he could use the airship to rescue the people from the deep valley he would be more than ever in your debt.”
“Rescue people from the valley? Be in our debt? And he spoke as if he knew us?” fired Jerry at the watchman. “Then it must have been the old hermit, Jackson Bell, whom we rescued--and whose son, Bobby, we saved from the gang of Mexicans. But I can’t understand it--it seems incredible--how came he here--how did he come to mention all this?” and Jerry looked with a puzzled air at Sud Snuffles, who was rapidly recovering.
“He didn’t mention it all at once,” said the watchman. “The old hermit, if that’s what you call him, let out by degrees what I have told you. So his name was Jackson Bell, eh? Well, Noddy didn’t call him anything.”
“Probably he did not want you to remember the name,” suggested Bob. “But I’m sure it’s the same man.” The description of the rescue of the hermit will be found in the book “The Motor Boys Across the Plains; or the Hermit of Lost Lake.”
“What else did you hear, and what happened?” inquired Ned.
“Well, I was naturally surprised to see Noddy and the two persons with him,” resumed the watchman, “and more so when Noddy gave me a note, and said Jerry Hopkins had written it, and that it was permission for him to take out the airship.”