"It certainly is true, Uncle Lester, every word of it! You are an innocent man, and everybody at home knows it. Father has been trying his best to get into communication with you. He inserted personals in the newspapers, and even put detectives on your track; but, as you know, without avail."
"Then the world knows that I am innocent! Thank God for that!" exclaimed the man, with fervor. "Oh, how I have suffered! And for such a long time, too!" And tears stood in his eyes.
"But why didn't you communicate with father?" asked the nephew. "You ought to have known that he would be tremendously worried about you."
"I was bitter, bitter against the whole world. I didn't think I had a friend left!" cried Lester Lawrence. "I didn't want to see anybody, and I didn't want anybody to see me. I was afraid that they might catch me and put me in jail, and then if I could not prove my innocence—and there was to my mind no way of doing that—they would send me to prison for a long term of years. That's why I made up my mind to disappear."
"And you've been up here ever since?" asked Phil.
"No, I've been here only since last Summer. Before that I was in another section of the Adirondacks."
Lester Lawrence looked at Dave and Roger, who had followed Phil into the cabin, and at the other boys, who were crowded around the doorway.
"Who are these; some of your school chums?" he questioned.
"Yes, Uncle Lester," answered the shipowner's son, and introduced his friends one after another. "They are all good fellows, and I hope you will consider them as friends."
"I will do that, Phil, if you want me to," was the reply. "Your revelation has lifted a great weight from my shoulders. Tell me all the particulars."