“I donno, some business of keeping him away from school till arter examinations, I guess, but I don’t see why that should worry him. I never was anxious to go to school myself and if anybody had said I shouldn’t it wouldn’t have bothered me none,” with a hoarse laugh.
“Keep me away from school till after examination?” thought Jack. “Oh, I see! This is a plot of some of the Hilltop boys, Herring and his set, no doubt. No one else would do it.”
“Where have Byke and Tyke gone?” asked the man.
“To take back a car. We don’t want it.”
“Ha! I might have wanted it myself,” muttered the other. “Why didn’t they let me know?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Friend of theirs, hey? Well, they’ll come back after a bit. Folks don’t like to have other fellows’ autos with ’em. It ain’t allus safe.”
“No, but I could have taken it back as well as they could and I wanted to go that way besides.”
“Well, we come to get supper for the boy and to see that he didn’t get away. If you want to go it ain’t nothin’ to us as I know.”
One of the men now unfastened one of the windows while the other went outside where there was a rusty little cook stove and began to make a fire.
Then the other got some bacon and a half dozen potatoes from a locker under the shelf, produced a greasy frying-pan from a dusty corner and went outside to get the supper.