"Where did you leave your cart, Gabe; for you must have had it along if you expected to take the calf back with you?"
"It's over at the farmer's right now," replied the other, frankly. "They said he was in Tenafly, and wouldn't be back short of a hour or more. And as my boss told me not to come home without the veal, I tied up the hoss. Used to come over here to the old place when I was a kid, along with the rest, but I ain't never been up here for years now. Thought, seein' I was so clost, I'd just take a walk over to find out how she looked, to pass the time away."
"Oh! I see," Fred broke in; "and when you got here you heard somebody calling inside the mill, did you?"
"I heard a queer sound, more like a groan than anything else," admitted the boy.
"That was me, all right," chuckled Colon. "Yelled till I got tired, and I was so husky I just couldn't let out another peep. And as I kept on tryin' to slip an arm out, I reckon I did some gruntin'. I was mad all through; because, you see, I'd guessed what it was all about, and that they didn't want me to run to-morrow."
"Say, when you heard that groan, didn't you feel like skipping out?" asked Bristles, with a vein of secret admiration in his voice now.
"Me? Well, I guess not," replied the other, pugnaciously. "I just reckoned there was somebody inside there that was sick; and when I couldn't open any door, I crawled up the wheel, and slid in through the hole, just like we used to do long ago, Sid Wells, when we came up here to swim and fish."
"That's all there is to it," declared Colon. "I heard somebody coming along, and called out, so he found me lying here, tied up like a turkey used to be when they cooked him on the old time spit. And while Gabe chawed away at the knots we did some chinning, believe me. But boys, I'm right glad to see you. What's the latest news from home?"
"Why, the whole town's in an uproar about the way you went off without so much as saying good-bye," Bristles said; which of course, caused Colon to chuckle; for any boy would feel good to know that, for once, his worth was appreciated.
Possibly some of those same good people who were now so much concerned about his welfare had many times in the past referred to him as "that long-legged imp who ought to be taught better manners at home;" for Colon as a younger boy had been rather inclined to be saucy.