“I we,—er—that is—we—er—I—” began the professor, finding it was hard to tell the truth.
“Oh, it’s poor old Kate,” went on the hermit. “She has probably been telling you some strange stories. Will you not come into my cabin?”
“Don’t go into the murderer’s hut!” cried the woman, as she turned and fled back through the underbrush, leaving the travelers in a somewhat queer situation.
[CHAPTER XXII]
A REVELATION
The professor did not know what to do. He and the boys expected to find the hut deserted, but, through some cause, the woman had evidently made a mistake as to the absence of the hermit. Nor did Mr. Snodgrass care to accept the invitation of the old man and enter the hut, not knowing what he might find there.
“You must not mind what Kate says,” the hermit went on, seeing that his unexpected visitors hesitated. “She means well, but she exaggerates a little sometimes.”
The professor thought that a rather cool manner in which to reply to accusation of murder, but, he reflected, if the hermit was as bad as the woman made him out to be, he would naturally, be rather a bold sort of person.
The boys, too, were somewhat embarrassed by their position. To come suddenly upon a man you expect to bind and hand over to the authorities as a criminal of the worst kind and then to find him calmly inviting you into his house, is something out of the ordinary. How much longer the travelers might have stood outside the hut, after the invitation to enter had been given, will always be a cause for speculation, because, the next instant something happened.