ROUNDING the bend at a run, the four Scouts saw that the big truck had missed plunging over the ravine by mere inches.

The heavily loaded vehicle had skidded wildly, bringing up at a sharp angle against a rocky embankment. Shattered glass lay on the pavement.

Judy was the first to reach the tilted truck cab. She could not at first get the jammed door open, but suddenly it gave, swinging back so hard, she nearly was thrown off balance.

The driver was slumped over the wheel, stunned and bleeding from flesh cuts. He was a heavy-set man with a beak-like nose and square jaw which sagged to give him a stupid appearance. His eyes were glazed and unseeing.

The only other occupant of the truck, a thin man with two front teeth missing, sprawled half off the seat, moaning and using foul language.

“My neck!” he screamed. “It’s like killing me! Don’t stand there! Do something! Get a doctor!”

He pulled himself out of the cab, pushing angrily at Kathleen when she tried to help him. Despite the rebuff she took his arm to steady him. “Don’t touch me! Get away!” he screamed, staggering. Kathleen caught a whiff of his breath then and knew that he had been drinking. She noted that his right arm hung limp and that the right shoulder was much lower than the left. He had grasped it at the elbow to provide support.

“You can’t raise your arm above your shoulder, can you?” she demanded. “Your collar bone must be fractured.”

“So what?” the trucker demanded savagely. He leaned weakly against the truck, ignoring her efforts to be of help.

Meanwhile, Judy, Beverly and Betty had devoted their attention to the truck driver, who appeared in more serious condition than the disagreeable passenger.

Carefully, they stretched him out flat on the cab seat.

“He may be only stunned,” Judy said anxiously. “The first thing is to get the blood stopped. No artery has been cut fortunately.”

The blood came from two facial cuts and a wrist which had been slashed by flying glass. Judy removed a tiny splinter of glass from the latter wound, treated the cut with antiseptic, placed a compress over the opening and bandaged it tightly.

That job done, the girls bandaged the driver’s face, noting with relief that he seemed to be recovering from shock. Now and then he moaned in pain as they worked deftly and efficiently, but for the most part he eyed them silently.

Kathleen, on the other hand, was having a most trying time with her patient, who refused to cooperate. He would not lie down or let her examine his neck.

“I can’t do anything with him,” she whispered to Judy. “I’m sure he has a fractured collar bone. But what to do about it? He’s acting like a maniac.”

“Delirious?”

“He’s just a mean character,” Kathleen muttered in an undertone. “I’m sort of scared.”

“Scared? Why?”

“He has a revolver in his back pocket.”

“Maybe he carries it to protect the cargo,” Judy replied. “Let’s see what we can do about that collar bone.”

Moving over to the sullen trucker, who stood leaning against the tilted vehicle, she addressed him quietly but firmly.

“You’ll feel more comfortable if you sit or lie down. We’ll help you—”

“I don’t want any help.” The trucker’s lips parted in an ugly snarl which revealed his missing front teeth. “You got a car?”

“No, we’re Girl Scouts on a hike.”

“Girl Scouts! A lot of help you’ll be!”

Judy ignored the sarcasm, noting how limply the trucker’s right arm hung. “We can help,” she insisted. “Your collar bone has been broken, I think.”

“So what?” the trucker demanded belligerently. “I’m worried about this truck. We can never move it out of this—have to abandon it.”

“You should be able to get a wrecker from the village. Now about that collar bone—”

“Forget it, I said.” The man’s gaze roved toward the cab of the truck where Betty and Beverly were covering the driver with coats.

“Is Joe done for?” he demanded with cold rather than friendly concern.

“He’s more stunned than hurt, I think,” Judy replied.

“Can’t he make it on his own pins? We gotta get out o’ here.”

“He shouldn’t try to walk. We’ll bring help to you as fast as we can. First, though, you must take a sensible attitude and let us wrap that collar bone. You’ll be far more comfortable until we can get you a doctor.”

“Okay,” the trucker suddenly consented. “Make it snappy though, and don’t hurt me or I’ll bash you in! I ain’t in no mood to be worked over by amateurs.”

Having cajoled the man into a more cooperative mood, Judy went quickly to work. With Kathleen helping, she utilized a triangular bandage as a sling for the right arm, tying it snugly to the side of his body with a cravat bandage. “Humph!” the trucker muttered, not displeased as he surveyed the finished job. “Not too bad.”

“The important thing now is to get you both to a doctor,” Judy said briskly. “Cars pass rather infrequently on this road. Kathleen and I will go for help while Beverly and Betty stay here to do what they can.”

“You’ve done enough now,” the trucker returned. “Thanks, kids! Now all of you beat it—on your way.”

“We’ll have a wrecker sent,” Judy went on, gathering up her first aid equipment.

“Don’t bother.”

“But we’ll be glad to do it,” Judy insisted. “It’s part of our Scout training to help when we can.”

“Yeah? Cut out the chatter and clear out!” The trucker glowered at the girls, and dropped his left hand to his hip pocket. “Get out I said!”

Frightened by the hostile attitude of the man, Beverly and Betty snatched up their first aid kits, and started hurriedly off the way they had come. Kathleen and Judy were more deliberate in making their departure. However, knowing that the trucker had a revolver, they were in no mood to argue with him.

Once beyond the first bend in the road, the four girls excitedly discussed the situation.

“That’s all the thanks we get for helping!” Beverly said furiously. “We’ve lost out on the Hermit Ridge competition too—worse luck.”

“I guess there’s more to this first aid business than just wrapping up broken bones!” Betty added. “One has to learn how to handle half-crazy patients.”

“I can’t understand why that man was so eager to get us away,” Judy remarked thoughtfully. “Normally, anyone in similar plight would welcome help. Why wouldn’t he want us to send a doctor or a wrecker?”

“Just out of his head, I guess,” Beverly shrugged.

“On the contrary,” Judy insisted, “he seemed quite cool about the entire procedure. You know, I wonder what sort of cargo those men were carrying?”

“It must have been valuable,” Kathleen replied. “Otherwise, why would he carry a revolver for protection?”

Keyed up by the encounter with the two men, but decidedly discouraged over the outcome of their efforts, the girls hiked as fast as they could down the mountain road. Despite the order that they were not to send help, they planned to do so.

“Doesn’t a car ever come on this road?” Beverly complained after they had hiked ten minutes without meeting or being passed by an automobile or a truck.

“I see a car coming now!” Kathleen suddenly cried. “From the direction of the village.”

“Say, we’re in luck!” exclaimed Judy, abruptly halting. “It’s a state highway patrol car!”

Waiting, the girls flagged the automobile to a stop. Quickly, they told the two patrolmen of the accident and of the strange behavior of the truckers who had rejected assistance.

“Did you notice the license number of the truck?” one of the highway patrolmen asked.

None of the Scouts had made a note of it.

“We were too busy wrapping up wounds to think of that,” Judy confessed.

The patrolmen next inquired if the girls could describe the two truckers.

“Oh, yes!” Kathleen said eagerly. “The passenger was a thin fellow with two teeth missing. He had dark bushy eyebrows and was very disagreeable.”

“That was Ben Vodner, I’ll bet a cent!” one of the patrolmen exclaimed. “Did he have a scar on his left cheek?”

“Yes, he did!” Judy recalled. “A long jagged white mark!”

“What did the other man look like?”

“His most prominent feature was a large hooked nose,” Judy described him. “He was a large man, heavy-set and with a square jaw. I’d say he weighed about two hundred pounds—”

“That’s Joe Pompilli for sure!”

“Who is he?” Kathleen demanded.

“Joe’s the ring leader of a bunch of hi-jackers,” one of the patrolmen informed her. “Off and on for the last six months, he and his boys have been hi-jacking cargo and taking it through here right under the noses of the forest rangers.”

“So that was why they didn’t want help!” Judy exclaimed. “That truck that went off the road was loaded with stolen cargo!”

Taking the girls into the patrol car, the two patrolmen proceeded with all speed toward the scene of the accident.

“It’s just around the next bend,” Judy informed the driver.

“Then I’ll let you girls out here,” he said, pulling up at the side of the road. “There may be shooting. Stay back until we see what’s what.”

Piling out of the car, the Scouts waited until the patrolmen had driven on. Then, they rounded the bend, tense and expectant.

The truck remained in the ditch where last they had seen it, but neither of the injured men were anywhere visible.

Watching from a safe distance, the girls saw the patrolmen carefully search the truck cab.

“Those two hi-jackers have fled!” Judy exclaimed. “I guess they weren’t as badly hurt as we thought!”

At a run, the Scouts raced up the road to join the patrolmen, who by this time had broken open the door lock on the back of the truck.

“Just as I thought,” one of the searchers declared as he swung open the double doors. “Stolen auto tires!”

“Tires snatched from the Graystone Transport Co. The truck was held up early this morning across the state line.”

Judy and her friends were bewildered with respect to what had happened to the two accident victims. They were not long in doubt however, for tire marks on the pavement showed plainly that a car had come along, turned on the roadway, and returned in the same direction whence it had come.

“Ben Vodner must have stopped the driver and made him take him and his pal, Joe, to town,” the patrolman commented. “They’re likely heading for Brady City, over the state line. There’s a slim chance we can overtake ’em.”

Knowing that the wild chase might end in a gun battle, the patrolmen told the Scouts they could not take them along.

“Catch a ride back to your camp,” one of the men advised Judy as he prepared to drive away. “We’ll let you know later how this comes out. If we overtake those hi-jackers, we may need you to testify. If they get away, you want to steer clear of them. Joe and Ben are mighty tough boys, and they’ll bear you no gratitude for the help you gave them today!”