"And say, he tells us right at the end of his note that he's some hungry," Lil Artha went on to remark; "and, according to my notion, that condition is next door to being insane. Why, mebbe the poor fellow hasn't had a solitary bite for a whole day or even two of 'em. I pity him from the bottom of my heart."
"Notice what he incidentally says near the end," added Elmer. "'Better leave me to my fate unless you can find a way to seal his lips.' That seems to strengthen our theory, doesn't it?"
"All this mention of 'he' must stand for the unknown man who has got Hen, of course?" ventured Mark.
"Couldn't be anybody else," the patrol leader made answer; "in fact, Hen just now doesn't seem able to even think of any other person."
"The fellow is no common rascal, let me tell you, suh," Chatz declared. "He must have been some sort of professor along the lines of magic, perhaps a hypnotist who performed wonders on the stage before crowds, and then dabbled in things that the law sat down on, which landed him in the penitentiary finally."
"When the truth comes out, Chatz, I'm positive that your theory will be found pretty near the exact facts," affirmed Elmer.
"But all the time we're jabbering away here," warned Lil Artha, "remember that they're getting further and further away from us."
"As to that," the patrol leader assured him, "a few minutes don't make so much difference, and it's always best to start right, so as to avoid a loss of ten times as much later on by making mistakes. Then again, I'm pretty sure that man is too smart to think of trying to leave Sassafras Swamp before night comes, even if he plans to do it then."
Somehow, this intelligence comforted the more impetuous ones. They had such unlimited faith in Elmer knowing what course was best to pursue that his judgment was accepted on its face value every time—just as the Treasury notes of the United States Government are relied upon to be worth their face denomination in specie.
"About how long ago would you thay they had thkipped out of here?" Ted asked, as they still lingered, looking to the right and to the left, as though wanting to make certain nothing valuable in the way of a clue could have escaped their scrutiny.