With that the stranger broke into a loping run.  At first glance this gait didn’t seem to be a swift one, but it was the long, easy, loping stride of the wolf in motion.  Young Prescott found that he had to exert himself in order to keep up with the other.

“Go back to your shack!” ordered the prowler.

“Hold on a minute, so that I can talk with you,” urged Prescott.

By this time they were at a considerable distance from the camp.  Suddenly the prowler halted, wheeling about like a flash, glaring into young Prescott’s eyes.

“Now, I’ll learn you!” growled the prowler.

“Do you mean that you’ll teach me?” queried Prescott.  “What?”

“I’ll learn you,” growled the other, “not to keep on banging around me when I don’t want you!”

“Do you happen to have any idea,” Dick persisted coolly, “that your name is probably Page, and that you undoubtedly have a very rich father, who is trying to find you?”

“Where did you read that fairy tale?” sneered the prowler.

“Partly on your skin to-day,” Dick rejoined, “when I came upon you as you were dressing near that pool.”

“Stop kidding me!” commanded the other sternly.  “And now back to you cosy little bed for you!  Fade!  Vanish!  If you don’t then you’ll soon wish you had!”

But Dick held his ground, despite the very evident sincerity of the other’s threat, and gazed unflinchingly back at the prowler.

“Let me tell you,” Dick went on.  “Of course I cannot be positive, but there is a missing heir who has, on his chest and one shoulderblade just such marks as I saw on you to-day when you were sitting by the pool putting on your shirt?”

“Oh, forget that thrilling stuff!” jeered the other.  “Don’t you suppose I know who my father is?  Old Bill Mosher hasn’t suddenly grown rich.  How could Bill get rich when he is in jail for drunkenness?”

“So you think your name is Mosher?” pursued Prescott.

“I know it is,” replied the prowler harshly.  “And, around this neck of the woods a fellow couldn’t have a harder, tougher name than Mosher.”

“But if your name were really Page-----” pressed Dick.

“No use stringing me like that,” snapped the other.  Even in the darkness, lit only here and there by starlight, the scowl on his face was visible.  “Tell you what,” declared Mosher, an instant later.

“Well?”

“Beat it!”

“I don’t under------”

“Yes, you do,” retorted the self-styled Mosher.  “Vamoose!  Twenty-three in a hurry!  Make your get-away!”

“Until I’ve made you listen to reason,” Prescott insisted, “I won’t leave you.”

“Oh, yes, you will, and right now, or-----”

“No!”

“See here!”

Mosher held a hard, horny fist menacing before Dick’s face, but the high school boy failed to wince.

“Git!  Now, or crawl later!” warned Mosher.