CHAPTER XI

NODDY IN ADVANCE

There was a moment’s pause, during which all the actors in the little rural comedy looked at each other. And, as for the professor and the constable, they did more than look, for the scientist still had a firm hold of the other’s coat, and the man was pulling desperately to get away.

“Are ye there, Sim an’ Jake?” gasped the constable.

“Thet’s what we be!” cried the taller of the farmers, evidently Sim, as he advanced with ready pitchfork.

“Me too,” put in Jake. “What’s up, Enberry? Have them highwaymen attacked ye?”

“Attacked me? I should say they had!” cried the constable. “That’s why I whistled for help. Jab ’em!”

“Hold on!” cried Jerry, fearing the professor might get hurt. “Come on, boys,” he urged Ned and Bob. “We’ve got to take a hand in this!”

“But what in the world does it all mean?” asked Ned.

“And what makes the professor act so queer?” Bob wanted to know.

“Don’t stop to ask questions!” cried Jerry, vaulting from his seat. “Come on!”

The three boys advanced toward the group of men who now surrounded Uriah Snodgrass. The scientist still retained his grip of the constable with one hand, while with the other he was making cautious advances toward the coat collar of the farmer-officer.

“Let me be!” cried the constable. “Jab him, Sim an’ Jake! Jab him!”

“Keep still,” ordered Professor Snodgrass. “I’ll have him in another minute!”

“Ye’ve got me now, consarn ye!” snapped the constable, trying in vain to pull away. “If ye lay another hand on me I’ll have ye sent t’ jail fer life! Let me go, I tell ye!”

“Look out with those pitchforks!” cried Jerry, as he saw Sim advance the prongs dangerously close to the professor’s legs.

“There! I’ve got it!” suddenly exclaimed the little scientist. His hand made a descent on the farmer’s collar, and then, with something tightly clasped in his fist, Mr. Snodgrass leaped back. Sim and Jake closed up alongside of the man who had summoned them by whistle.

“What’d you take offen me?” demanded Mr. Snook suspiciously. “My badge? Ef ye have----”

“I only took one of the most beautiful specimens of a green spider I have ever seen,” was the answer of the professor. “I saw it on your coat collar, and I was so afraid it would get away. I had to act quickly. The only way was to grab you, for if you had felt the spider on your neck, it might have tickled you, and you would have brushed it off. Then it would have been lost for ever. Ah, but I have you, my little beauty!” and the professor peered in between a crack in his fingers to make sure that the spider had not escaped. A moment later he had popped it into one of his specimen boxes.

“A--a spider?” gasped Mr. Snook, as if he had not understood.

“A _green_ spider,” corrected Mr. Snodgrass. “A most perfect specimen. It was on your coat collar. A moment later it would have crawled on your neck.”

“An’ if it had, I’d have squashed it, sure!” cried Mr. Snook. “I sure would have squashed it! A green spider! Why I’d a squashed it, if it had been a red, white an’ blue one! I hate ’em! Ye must be crazy t’ want ’em!”

“I want them for scientific purposes,” said Uriah Snodgrass, and then he briefly explained that he traveled for a college that wanted all the specimens he could collect.

“A college perfesser,” murmured Sim. “Say, Jake, it’s a good thing we didn’t jab him.”

“I guess it is. An’ t’ think of any mortal man wantin’ such things as bugs!”

“Well, everybody to their notion,” said Mr. Snook grimly. “If ye want spiders ye’re welcome t’ ’em. But that don’t alter th’ fact that you folks have got t’ come along with me.” He was less excited now.

“But I don’t understand,” spoke Jerry. “What is the charge, and who makes it? Were you waiting here for us?”

“That’s what I was,” declared the constable. “I got a telephone t’ be on the lookout for ye. I was warned ye’d be desperit, an’ try t’ escape, so I swore in Sim an’ Jake as my special deputies. It looks like I’d need ’em, too. Jake, stand by on this side of me, an’ Sim, you git on th’ other. If they starts t’ run, jab ’em. Now, I arrest ye in th’ name of th’ law,” and in turn he laid his hand on the shoulders of Jerry, Bob, Ned and the professor. “Are ye comin’ along peaceable, or shall I have t’ use force?” he asked again.

“If this is a regular arrest, by a regular officer we certainly will come along peaceably,” replied Jerry. “But who makes the charge?”

“That I can’t tell ye. I got my authority from Judge Amos Blackford. Ye’ll have t’ appear before him. It were him as were telephoned t’, an’ he passed it on t’ me.”

“And you really have the authority to arrest us?” asked Ned, still doubting.

“There’s th’ warrant, sworn t’, all reg’lar an’ in due form, according t’ law,” said the constable, pulling out a paper with a flourish. “Ye kin look at it.”

Jerry read it quickly. It was merely a short form of bench warrant, “sworn to on information and belief,” wherein the judge himself appeared as the accuser, the real party’s name not being mentioned.

“If ye don’t believe that, ye kin ask Jake an’ Sim here if I ain’t th’ regular constable fer this township,” added Mr. Snook proudly.

“That’s what he is!” chorused the two farm hands.

“Well, then I suppose we will have to go with you,” admitted Jerry, “though I don’t understand it. Come along, boys. Do you want to ride with us?” he asked, turning to the two farm hands and the constable.

“Not for me,” spoke Sim, and Jake, too, shook his head. “I wouldn’t ride in one of them gasolene wagons fer a month’s wages,” added Sim.

“Then I guess we can find room for you, Mr. Snook,” went on Jerry. “That is if you’re not afraid of the machine, and don’t imagine that such desperate characters as we are will do away with you.”

“Oh, I guess I kin trust ye,” said the constable with a sheepish grin. “Th’ judge’s house is about a mile down th’ road. He kin hold court there, an’ fine ye, I suppose.”

“But I don’t see what for,” said Jerry. “However, come along.”

They were soon in the auto, and had started off, the two hired men, with their pitchforks, standing in the road with open-mouthed wonder as the car shot away. Ned noticed that Mr. Snook grasped the sides of the seat with nervous hands, as if he expected something to happen at any moment. Chunky was a bit nervous, and Jerry was clearly puzzled. As for the professor he was too much occupied in making notes about the green spider to care whether he was arrested or not.

It was not a long run to the house of Judge Blackford, who lived in a comfortable residence. He himself proved to be a genial, old-fashioned gentleman.

“Well, Enberry,” he observed with a twinkle in his eyes as the auto drove up, “you got the desperadoes, I see.”

“Yep,” answered the constable shortly.

“Did they abuse you much; have much trouble in capturing them?”

“Nope. They come along peaceable enough, though at one time----” and then, thinking that he had not proved himself much of a hero in the spider episode, the constable stopped.

“Out with it!” cried the judge with a laugh. “I’ll find it out sooner or later.”

“I’ll tell ye later,” promised Mr. Snook nervously.

“May I ask what this is all about?” inquired Jerry. “The constable says we are charged with assault and battery. By whom?”

“By Noddy Nixon!” was the unexpected answer of Judge Blackford.

“Noddy Nixon!” cried Jerry. “Is he here?”

“No. I’ll tell you how it was,” went on the magistrate. “I received a telephone this noon, from Judge Lawton, of Middleville township. He said a party of autoists had come to him, and had sworn that another party of autoists, naming and describing you, had caused them to burst two tires. And, as the tires burst, Mr. Nixon and his party were thrown to one side of their car, painfully bruising and contusing them, as the warrant says.

“So Judge Lawton, before whom the original warrant was sworn out, asked me to issue a supplementary one, and to intercept you as you came through here. Which I had to do, it being my duty. Now you can consider yourself charged with the crime, and how do you plead. I’ll hold court right here. Did you or didn’t you?”

“Well, I guess I did it,” answered Bob. “I threw the tacks in the road. But it was to prevent Noddy from following us.”

Thereupon the judge was told as much of the story as Jerry and his chums thought necessary to explain of their conduct, no mention being made of the radium on Snake Island. He was told how Noddy had repeatedly tried to take a mean advantage.

“Hum. That makes it different,” spoke Judge Blackford. “I reckon that Nixon chap didn’t tell this to my friend Judge Lawton. Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked me to issue a warrant. Now this is how the matter stands.

“I was requested to apprehend and hold you for examination. That I must do. This Nixon fellow promised to be here in the morning, at nine o’clock, to give his evidence. I don’t believe he’ll come and face you. But I must hold you until then. I ask you, in the meanwhile to be my guests. Then, in the morning, if he does not appear, I shall discharge you, and explain matters to Judge Lawton. I know he will approve of it. Will you stay and dine with me? I’ll be glad of your company, and you needn’t consider yourselves prisoners. You’re out on bail, so to speak. Supper will soon be ready. Will you stay?”

“I--yes--of course we will!” cried Bob so quickly that both his chums laughed, and Mr. Blackford looked at them curiously.

“Then the court is adjourned,” went on the magistrate. “Come in, boys, after you leave your auto in the barn. You needn’t wait, Enberry.”

“All right,” answered Mr. Snook, who hurried off, looking over his shoulder as if he feared he might see more spiders.

The boys found Judge Blackford to be a most congenial host. It developed that he and Professor Snodgrass had once attended the same preparatory school, and the pair exchanged pleasant memories.

The judge explained how Noddy had probably proceeded.

“After his tires were repaired,” he said, “the Nixon fellow must have hurried on, following you. He figured out that you would have to pass through here, as this is the main road. Then he went to Middleville, swore out a warrant, which he had no right to do under the circumstances, and the rest you know. I am sorry you were inconvenienced.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Bob. “We’ll probably have a better meal than if we ate in the auto; eh, fellows?”

“Say, Chunky, you are the limit!” cried Jerry, and then he had to explain to the judge their chum’s failing.

The magistrate, however, took quite a liking to Bob, and soon there was a merry party gathered at the table. The evening was spent pleasantly, and there were plenty of comfortable beds in the judge’s big, old-fashioned house, where he and his wife lived with some old servants.

Nine o’clock came next morning, but Noddy Nixon did not appear.

“He only did this to delay us,” declared Jerry, and the others agreed with him.

“Well, if he isn’t here by ten I’ll formally discharge you, and send the warrant back to Judge Lawton with an explanation,” said Judge Blackford.

Ten o’clock brought no change in the situation, and holding court in his library, the magistrate discharged the “prisoners.” Constable Snook was on hand, and looked rather disappointed when he saw that he was not to have the pleasure of taking the boys and the professor to jail.

“But we have strict laws agin’ speedin’ here,” he warned them, as Jerry got out the car to resume the trip. “If I catch ye’ speedin’ I’ll have t’ take ye in.”

“We won’t come this way soon again,” replied Jerry. Then, good-byes having been said to the judge and his wife, our friends started on their journey.

“I wonder what happened to Noddy?” spoke Ned, who had taken his place on the front seat with Jerry.

“Oh, he has either turned back, or else he’s waiting until we get far enough ahead of him so that he can follow as he pleases,” replied the tall lad.

They had turned off the main road to reach the home of the judge, and were now coming out of a sort of long country lane, thickly bordered with trees, to reach the main highway again. As they were about to swing around a turn they all heard the chug-chug of an auto.

“Someone’s coming,” remarked Ned.

“Yes. I guess we’ll let ’em get ahead of us, so we won’t have to take so much dust,” decided Jerry. “We can wait here in the shade.”

He stopped the car, behind a screen of trees and bushes, not far from the main road. A moment later a car shot past, and, as it did so, Ned uttered a low exclamation.

“Did you see that?” he asked Jerry.

“I sure did!” replied the tall lad.

“What was it?” inquired Bob, who was in the rear with the professor.

“Noddy Nixon!” answered Jerry. “He’s ahead of us now, and that’s where we want him. He can’t follow us now. I guess, Noddy, you’ve over-reached yourself,” and Jerry smiled grimly.