"Suppose, then, she brings you that paper, and it turns out to be all you hope for? You can take it away with you, and when we get back to Asheville place it in the hands of some reliable lawyer, who will have Reuben summoned to court with the girl. Then she will never be allowed to go back with him again; and he may consider himself lucky if he gets off without being sent to jail for having withheld a lawful document, and replacing it with a false will, or one that was older."
Bob uttered a cry of delight.
"It sure takes you to think up an answer to every hard, knotty problem, Thad," he cried. "That is just the best thing ever, and I'm willing to try it. Why, for me to take the law in my hands would be silly, when the courts will save me all the risk. And while I hate to disappoint poor little Bertha, who believes I'm down here to carry her off, in spite of old Reuben, she'll understand, and be willing to wait a bit. Thank you over and over again, Thad. I'm feeling a thousand per cent better, suh, after what you said."
"And about the other thing, Bob, I wouldn't let myself believe too strongly that this mysterious prisoner of the moonshiners will turn out to be your father. There were some other revenue men who have disappeared in the last few years, men who started into the mountains to learn things, and never came out again. It might be one of these after all. And I guess you'd be awfully disappointed if you set too much store on that thing."
"I keep trying all I know how not to hope too much, Thad," replied the other, with a big sigh; "and tellin' myself that it would be too great news; yet, seems like there was a little bird nestlin' away down in here, that goes on singin' all the while, singin' like a mockingbird that brings good news," and Bob laid a trembling hand on his breast in the region of his heart, as he spoke.
"Well," said Thad, warmly, "I'm just hoping that everything'll come out the way you want, old fellow. We're going to back you up the best we know how; and if we fail to do what we aim for, it won't be from lack of trying."
"I know that, and I'll never, never forget it as long as I live!" declared the other, almost choking in his emotion.
"There's the camp," remarked Thad, five minutes later, "and everything seems to be going along all right at the old stand. I can see Step Hen lying on his back, with his hat over his eyes as if he might be taking a nap; Smithy is of course brushing his coat, because he has discovered some specks of dust on it that worry him; and if you look at Giraffe, you'll know what he's up to when I tell you he's whittling at a piece of pine, to beat the band."
"Getting kindling ready to start up the fire, when supper time comes around," said Bob, with a chuckle, as though some of these familiar sights began to do him good, in that they served to take his thoughts away from the things that distressed and worried him.
When the two scouts arrived in camp they were immediately surrounded by their comrades, who demanded to know what they had seen and done. To judge from the variety of questions that showered upon them, one might think that Thad and Bob had been off on a regular foraging expedition, and scouring the upper regions in search of adventures.