Some one helped Bruce Duncan to his feet. It was the man who had been struggling with the creature when the coupe had arrived.
Harry Vincent, a dazed look on his face, was sitting in the road, rubbing the back of his head.
The man, who was assisting Duncan, appeared to be a farmer. His face was white from his recent experience.
"Sorry I couldn't come quicker, friend," he said. "You gentlemen helped me. I was pretty near done. I was just comin' to help you when the critter ran away. I was agoin' to hit him with this."
He exhibited a large stone in his right hand.
"Let's get him!" exclaimed Bruce.
He leaped to his feet and rushed to the car. He came back with two wrenches and a jack handle. He passed a wrench to the farmer. Harry, now well recovered, accepted the other. Flourishing the jack handle, Bruce started through the underbrush, with the others closely following.
The creature had plowed a track through the bushes. It was easy for them to follow the course, which led to a path. Running along, away from the road, the three men continued their pursuit.
In a few hundred yards they came to a clearing. A small house stood there — a one-story building, not much better than a cabin. A man was watching from the rude porch. He held a shotgun over one arm, and he gazed narrowly at the approaching group.
Bruce Duncan stopped in front of him. The man was dressed in outing clothes, but he did not appear to be a woodsman. Instead, he looked like some one from the city. His face was rather hardened, and he did not appear friendly.
"Well?" questioned the man, as though demanding an explanation.
"Did you see anything of a wild man?" asked Vincent, joining Bruce Duncan. "That's about the best way to describe the fellow we're after."
"You look rather wild yourselves," observed the man in a gruff voice. "You're on private property, too. What's the idea of coming in here this way?"
"It's the wild man," explained Duncan angrily. "He came this way. You must have seen him."
The man on the porch thrust his chin forward.
"You're telling me what I've seen?" he asked in a significant voice. "Listen, young fellow. You're a trespasser. Get that? Move along before I plug you."
He raised the shotgun in a threatening manner.
The farmer intervened.
"Just forget that shotgun, stranger," he said. "This ain't your property. I live around here. I know."
"I'm renting it," declared the man on the porch.
"From whom? I'll bet you're squatting here. This is Seth Wilkinson's property. Seth's a friend of mine. Lives in Harrisburg. If you don't want trespassers, where's your notice?"
"Over on that tree."
"That's Seth Wilkinson's sign. Not yours. What's more, that shotgun business ain't used around these parts no more. If you want a quick jury trial with twelve men all agin' you, just plug one of us. You got just two barrels there. You ain't agoin' to hit all three."
He swung the wrench in short circles.
"Look!" exclaimed Harry. "See? In the window!"
They turned toward the cabin window, but saw nothing.
"It's gone," asserted Harry. "It's the man that was in the road. He's there in the house. He half killed me. I'm going to get him."
"Wait a minute." The man on the porch was speaking. "I guess I've made a mistake with you fellows. I've got the wild man here, boys. He isn't a wild man, though. He's just eccentric. Did he give you trouble?"
"Blamed right he did," ejaculated the farmer. "He jumped out of the bushes and landed on me in the road. These gentlemen came along in their car just in time to save me."
"That makes it different." The man on the porch laid the shotgun aside. "Let me explain matters. This man I have here is half-witted. He's strong, but he's mild ordinarily. I've got charge of him. I know how to handle him, and he's just like a child ordinarily. I brought him here because we figured that if he was kept off by himself for a while, he would improve.
"I am very sorry for what has happened," the man went on smoothly. "I really mean that. I can promise you that it will not happen again. I was ignorant of what actually occurred. This is a valuable lesson for me."
Bruce Duncan's mind was working rapidly. The man's story was a good one and plausible. It was evident that his ape-faced charge had escaped by accident. There were even more reasons than the one he had explained that would make him desirous of keeping the brute under cover.
For Duncan knew that the ape-man had been used for a criminal purpose on at least one occasion. He and Vincent had found the clue they sought — the fact that linked the present with that first event of a month ago.
The man on the porch could not have recognized Duncan. For it was the ape-man who had entered his room, and Bruce doubted that the creature had sufficient intelligence to tell his master who Bruce Duncan was.
Bruce glanced at Harry. He realized that his friend had not yet caught the significance of their discovery.
The best plan was to leave and go back toward the town. On the way he could tell everything to Vincent.
They were nearing the evidence they sought. But who was the man on the porch? Was he merely a person of minor importance who kept the apelike creature under control? Or was he the one behind the sequence of crime?
It was this perplexity that caused Bruce Duncan to remain staring at the fellow after his two companions had turned toward the path. The stranger had bidden them a cordial farewell, thanking them for informing him of the attack made by his ward.
The man was laughing in a friendly manner as he waved good-by. As Harry and the farmer turned away, his lips closed together.
Upon his face appeared a strange, peculiar smile.
On one side his lips seemed to curl upward, on the other they turned downward. It gave his mouth a distorted expression — one that the viewer would not soon forget.
Bruce Duncan turned and hurried after his companions. He could scarcely restrain his exultation.
For the smile had betrayed the identity of the man who lived in the cabin. There was only one way to describe that smile. The mouth that had formed it had twisted lips.