CHAPTER XXIII
DICK MEETS AN OLD ENEMY
One afternoon Dick found himself alone near the edge of a tiny lake situated on the southern border of the jungle through which the party had passed. The others had gone up the lake shore, leaving him to see what he could catch for supper.
He had just hooked a magnificent fish of a reddish-brown color, when, on looking up, he espied an elderly man gazing at him intently from a knoll of water-grass a short distance away.
"Richard Rover, is it—ahem—possible?" came slowly from the man's thin lips. "Surely I must be dreaming!"
"Josiah Crabtree!" ejaculated Dick, so surprised that he let the fish fall into the water again. "How on earth did you get out here?"
"I presume I might—er—ask that same question," returned the former teacher of Putnam Hall. "Did you follow me to Africa?"
"Do you imagine I would be fool enough to do that, Mr. Crabtree? No, the Stanhopes and I were content to let you go—so long as you minded your own business in the future."
"Do not grow saucy, boy; I will not stand it."
"I am not saucy, as you see fit to term it, Josiah Crabtree. You know as well as I do that you ought to be in prison this minute for plotting the abduction of Dora."