Page:The Boys of Bellwood School.djvu/187

Rh in the bushes. He turned, som6whait startled. Before he could get fully around a brisk hand slapped him sharply on the shoulder, with the words:

"Hello, you—glad I've found you!"

Frank drew suspiciously away from a lad about his own age, and a total stranger to him. He was well dressed, and had a keen pair of eyes and a pleasant, rather quizzical expression of face.

Frank was on nettles for fear Jem might return, and at first feared that the boy might be some emissary of Brady or his recent kidnapers.

"Don't know me?" questioned the lad, smiling' boldly and in an extremely friendly way into Frank's face.

"Well, I know you," retorted the other. "Here, Frank Jordan, of Bellwood Academy, shake," and he extended his hand.

"Who are you?" inquired Frank, only feebly returning the hearty handshake of the stranger.

"I am your everlasting debtor—friend, slave!" declared the lad vehemently. "See here; that night, or, rather, morning, dark hallway—two officers—nabbed you, took you for me, and I got away."

"O—oh!" exclaimed Frank slowly, and with a decided shock. "I remember you now."

"Thought you would," nodded the lad briskly.