Tom felt a shock as though someone had thrown cold water over him.
That voice!
Tom knew now. It was Professor Skeel.
He began to understand. He saw the meaning of many things that had hitherto puzzled him. The vagueness was clearing away. The plot was beginning to be revealed.
Was this why Skeel had come to the wilderness of the Adirondacks? Was this why he and his cronies had been sneaking around the camp cabins? It seemed so.
“And yet, what in the world can he want of me?” Tom asked himself. “If it’s revenge for what I did to him, this is a queer way of showing it. I didn’t think he’d have spunk enough to plot a thing like this, though he certainly has meanness enough.”
Tom was thinking fast. He was putting together in his mind many matters that had seemed strange to him. Certain it was that at Skeel’s instigation he had been made a prisoner, and probably with the help of Murker and Whalen, though Tom had not seen their faces clearly and could not be sure of their identity.
“But what’s it all about?” poor Tom asked himself over and over again. “Why should he make a prisoner of me?”
“Can we carry him?” asked Skeel’s voice. “We’ve got to take him to the old shack, you know. Can’t leave him here. Besides, there’s some business to attend to in connection with him. Can you carry him through the snow?”