“How would three dollars a day and find suit you?” the scout-master went on.
“Fine,” answered the other, readily.
“All right then,” Thad continued, “let’s call it five dollars a day. And I hope there’s nothing in the way to prevent you sticking with us from now on?”
“Well, thet’s what I calls handsome, an’ yuh kin depend on Tom Smith astickin’ tuh yuh like a plaster. We’ll sure find the man, an’ theh gal, too, if so be we hev tuh run through theh ole swamp like a fine tooth comb. An’ I hopes as how they turn out tuh be the same as yuh want.”
“You can understand how much I’m hoping that way, when I tell you that we think the girl may be my little sister, who was stolen when she was a baby,” Thad went on to say; and upon the other evincing great interest in the matter, he thought it best to relate the whole story concerning the dismissal of the estate manager on account of his evil practices, and his subsequent hatred for the Brewsters, which gradually led up to the mysterious disappearance of little Pauline ten years ago, and the inability of the best detectives in the country to find her.
Tom Smith was evidently a rough fellow, but he had a heart, and the way in which he pressed the hand of the young scout-master, after the whole story had been told, indicated very plainly that he sympathized greatly with him in his mission, and would do everything in his power to bring about a meeting with the strange man who had entered the swamp ten days before, with that pretty child.
And Thad looked fully a hundred per cent brighter, now that the chances for accomplishing the end he had in view when he came South, seemed to have gained a new impetus. With such a man as Alligator Smith to lead them, knowing every part of the mysterious depths of the swamp as he did, from long years of hunting in its depths, it really looked as though they were now on the road to success; and that before long the truth would be made known. So that everybody, even Bumpus, seemed to be in a more jolly mood than had happened in some time.
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT A SCOUT STANDS FOR.
Things were certainly looking much more rosy now. With an experienced swamp man to guide them, there would no longer be that danger of getting lost that had kept hovering over their heads.
Then there was the white winged dove of peace in the camp in connection with the solving of the dreadful mystery that had been bothering Giraffe and some of the others, all in fact but Bumpus and Step Hen, for so long.