"Now then, Mister whatever-your-name-is," began the squire, "what about you?"
"I'll tell you nothing," said the man. "You have no right to hold me."
"Then we'll hold him on that charge, and we'll call him John Doe," decided the squire. "Maybe he'll change his tune after a bit. Lock him up," he ordered the constable in charge, and the mysterious man, as mysterious as ever, was led away.
"I'd like to ask one favor," he declared, halting a minute.
"You can ask, but I don't know as we'll grant it," spoke the squire.
"I've left a dog up in the old cabin," the man went on. "I guess you know the place," he said to Sandy. "It's the cabin where the girls took shelter from the rain. There's a dog tied there and he might starve to death. I wish you'd feed him."
"I'll do that," responded Sandy, quickly. "I'll look after him, too. He's entitled to some consideration, even if you ain't."
"I--I found him," answered the man, hesitatingly, "and he likes me. I wouldn't want to see him starve."
Then, as the queer character was locked up, Sandy started back for Oak Farm, puzzling over the mysterious man and his object.
These, and a dozen other questions like them, were showered on Sandy Apgar when he arrived at the farm, some little time later, after having seen the mysterious man safely locked up in the town jail.
"Now there's no use askin' me who he is, or what he wants," declared the young farmer. "All I know is that I caught him. He won't talk."
"You did a good piece of work," declared Mr. Pertell, "and a day or so of jail food may make the fellow change his mind. Well, it's too late to do any moving pictures to-day. We'll put off the barn-burning until to-morrow."
"Well, there's one thing we can't put off until to-morrow and that is looking after that dog," remarked Sandy. "The poor fellow may be frantic by now."
"Come along, Ruth--and anybody else who wants to," she added.
So the five set off for the lonely cabin.
"I can't understand how the dog came to be there, though," mused Russ, as they walked on through the woods. "That fellow wasn't at the cabin the last time we looked."
"But that was several days ago," Paul reminded him. "He may have been staying there ever since, thinking we had given up going there. That's very likely it."