"You send me to prison and my father will make it hot for you!"
"You stop threatening us, Link!" ordered Dave, sternly.
Much against his will, Link Merwell was forced to place his hands behind him, and in a few minutes Phil and Dave had secured the fishline around his wrists. Then they picked up his cap, which had fallen off, and placed it on his head.
"Now then, march!" ordered Dave. "And no funny work!" And he led the way back along the brook, with Merwell following and Phil bringing up the rear with the fishing outfits.
"Say, how do you expect a fellow to get over these rocks with his hands tied behind him?" grumbled Link Merwell, after he had slipped several times.
"You'll have to do the best you can," returned Phil, coldly. "A jailbird like you can't expect much consideration."
"Bah, you make me tired, Phil Lawrence!" growled the prisoner. "I don't think you'll be able to send me to prison; not for long, anyhow! My father's got plenty of money; he'll get me out some way."
"If he spends any money on you he'll be foolish," returned the shipowner's son. "Now go ahead, we are not going to waste all our time on you."
It was not long after this when they came in sight of the other boys. Ben and Roger were still fishing, while Luke and Shadow were resting on the rocks, the latter telling one of his favorite stories.
"Hello! What luck?" called Ben, looking up. And then he added: "Great Cæsar's ghost! if it isn't Link Merwell!"
"Where did you run across him?" cried Luke, leaping to his feet, followed by Shadow.
"We found him running away from some kind of a wild man," answered Dave.
"The wild man who scared us into fits the other day?" queried Roger.
"We don't know if it was that fellow or somebody else," answered Phil.
Link Merwell was much crestfallen to confront so many of his former schoolmates of Oak Hall. He realized that he was "in the camp of the enemy" in more ways than one. At one time or another he had played each of them some sort of a scurvy trick, and he realized that not one of them would have a good word to say for him.
"Well, I see they have made you a prisoner," remarked Luke, as he noticed that Link's hands were tied behind him.
"Humph! they had no right to do it," growled the prisoner. "Where are you going to take me, anyhow?"