“More of his wild fancies,” said Hodge.
“Mates,” observed Cap’n Wiley, “if there’s anything that upsets my zebro spinal column it is a crazy gentleman like that. I am prone to confess that he worries me. I don’t trust him. I am afraid that some morning I will wake up and find a hatchet sticking in my head. I should hate to do that.”
“I am positive he is harmless,” declared Merry. “Where is he, Abe?”
“I don’t know now. A while ago he just rushed off, calling and calling, and he’s not come back.”
Frank looked alarmed. “He promised me he would stay near the camp. He gave me his word, and this is the first time he has failed to obey me implicitly in everything.”
“He said he’d have to go to save you.”
“It was a mistake bringing him here, Frank,” asserted Hodge.
“But what could I do with him? He wouldn’t remain behind, and I knew the danger of leaving him there. Any day he might escape from the valley and lose himself in the desert to perish there.”
“Perhaps that is what will happen to him now.”
Merry was sorely troubled. He made preparations to go in search of Worthington without delay. But even as he was doing so the deranged man came running back into the camp and fell panting at his feet.