He worked from behind, and did his trick like lightning." "But there are no steaks, nor any plate, on the ground in the thicket now," Reade reported, after looking.
"No," Darry grunted.

"The fellow who tried me up like this passed over my eyes a dirty cloth that perhaps he would call a handkerchief.
Then I heard him over by the thicket.

Next he was back here and had whisked that cloth away from my eyes.

That was the last I heard of him." "Why didn't you set up a roar as soon as he attacked you ?" demanded Tom Reade.
"The noose bound my throat so tightly, I couldn't," Darry explained.
"I was seeing stars, and I was dizzy.

After he had taken a few hitches of the rope around me he eased up on the noose a bit." "Did you 'holler' then ?" questioned Dick.
"No," Dave Darrin admitted honestly.