CHAPTER IV.
THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT.
Will uttered a great sigh of relief as the stranger led him towards the anxious throng.
“Here’s your money, my little man,” he said, extending a bill towards Will. “I wouldn’t go through the suspense I’ve suffered again, though, for ten ospreys.”
Will took the money deprecatingly, and his murmured words to the effect that “it was too much,” were lost amid the busy hum of talk around him.
“Where’s the bird?” demanded the stranger, abruptly.
“They’re chasing it yonder, still alive.”
“Yes, but it can’t fly. Here they come with it.”
Will Bertram took this opportunity, while attention was diverted from himself, to slip away from the throng.
Clasping the ten dollar bill tightly in his hands, which were not a little bruised by climbing, he thought only of the benefit its possession would afford his parents.
He burst into the house just as his father and mother were sitting down to their humble evening meal, and wondering what had detained him so long beyond his usual time.