No sooner were they inside the rude shelter than both boys uttered cries of wonder mingled with delight.
“Here’s his treasure-chest as sure as anything!” yelled Leslie. “Oh, look, Dick! Mr. Holwell’s gold watch, and not a bit hurt, either! Won’t he be tickled half to death at getting it back? When I start winding it up I can hear it begin to work. And here’s Dan’s nickel time-keeper too, as well as Peg’s precious aluminum frying-pan.”
“Yes, and I’ve found the field-glasses that other party lost, as well as lots of things besides,” added Dick, laughing happily, for it really did seem as though the very last of their troubles had now been smoothed out.
“This is certainly a great picnic,” asserted Leslie. “I’d like Clint to come and take a good picture of this ape-made shack. It’d be well worth showing, with our crowd grouped around it as evidence that we’ve been here.”
“I’ll ask Mr. Bartlett to have it done to-morrow, for Mr. Holwell talks of having to go back home on the next day!” Dick declared.
“We’ll all be sorry to see the last of him, Dick.”
“That’s right,” agreed the other, earnestly. “Mr. Holwell is one man among a million when it comes to knowing just how to wind boys around his finger. But then that’s because he loves boys so. No man can have control over them unless he is thinking and planning for their benefit night and day.”
“I reckon you’re right there,” Leslie asserted. “Boys are a heap like animals. A dog knows by instinct who’s his friend. He’ll come up to one fellow wagging his tail the minute he hears his voice, even if he never saw him before; and growl as soon as another chap speaks to him. That’s the way with boys—they just know.”
As there was nothing more to detain them, Dick and his chum set off to find the berry pickers and lead them to the strange shelter fashioned by the escaped gorilla.
Great was the astonishment of the mill lads when they looked upon the “den,” and learned that everything that had been taken from their camp, as well as numerous other articles, had been recovered.