“Get up?” echoed Tag bitterly.  “If I could, do you suppose I’d be lying here talking to you now?”

“Are you hurt?” cried Dick.

“If I hadn’t been, do you suppose I’d have stayed with you as long as I have?” mocked the other indignantly.  “It all came of that money, too, and what you call ‘conscience.’  If I hadn’t come back with the money I wouldn’t have had that nasty tumble over the root, and my ankle would be as sound as ever.”

“Do you mean that you can’t walk?” Dick demanded.

“I can crawl, and that’s all,” Tag declared.  “I was at the spring, getting a drink, when I heard you coming.  Then I crawled back in here, but not fast enough to keep you from seeing something moving here.  It was right over yonder that I fell and wrenched my ankle.  I crawled over here so as to be near water until my foot got so that I could use it again.”

“Hoo-hoo!” bellowed Prescott, through his hands.  “Hoo-hoo the camp!  Hoo-hoo!”

“That’s right,” jeered Tag.  “Go in after the reward, when I can’t help myself.  Serves me right for taking money when I should have contented myself with my old game of stealing victuals only!”

“Hoo-hoo the camp!” repeated Prescott.  “Hoo-hoo!”

“That you, Dick?” came in Darrin’s voice.

“Yes; come here on the jump, Dave.  And bring the others.”

“Where?”

“At the spring.”

“Say,” remarked Tag shrewdly, “you oughtn’t to call a whole crowd that way.  There will be more to get a share in the reward, and you won’t get as much for yourself.”

“Oh, bother the reward!” spoke Prescott impatiently.  “All I’m thinking of, Tag, is the bother you’ve given us, first and last.”

“I suppose I always have been a trouble to folks,” Tag assented glumly.  “But I’ll be game—–­now that I’m caught.”

All the chums save Hazelton came on a run.

“Here’s Tag, fellows,” Dick hailed them.  “He has hurt his ankle and I guess we’ll have to carry him to camp.”

“That’ll be easy enough,” declared broad shouldered Tom Reade.  “I believe I can pick, him up alone.”

Tom tried.  The feat would have been possible, but it would not make for the comfort of the injured boy.

“You and I will make a queen’s chair,” suggested Dick.  Then Dave, Greg and Dan lifted Tag to the seat thus formed.

“You’ll find me heavy before you get me far,” Tag informed them.

“Pshaw!” retorted Tom.

Greg, running ahead, informed the others in camp who was coming.  The bearers were met by Mr. Page, Hibbert and Colquitt, running in the order named.

“Here’s the boy you want, Mr. Page,” called Dick Prescott.  “But look out for his injured ankle, sir.”

This last caution was necessary, for the older man, in his eagerness to embrace the lad whom he believed to be his son, almost crashed into him.

“So you’re my son—–­my boy, Egbert!” cried the father.