"But if we'd struck the ashes fairly, it might have sent us flying in every direction, at the speed we were going," said Henry. "It was a dangerous as well as a cowardly trick."
"Precisely so," responded Brown; "but you were saved from flying all abroad by the sled taking only one direction, and somehow you boys seemed to be inclined to follow it too."
"I think it ought to be reported to Doctor Gray," said Henry indignantly. "I'm no tell-tale, but such a thing as that might almost have been murder."
"And how will you prove that Tim did it? Or that any one did it, for the matter of that? As for Tim, he didn't do it, you don't need to be told that, I'm thinking," said Brown.
"And then there's Jack," said Ward. "He's suffered the most, but I don't think he'd want the thing reported. I don't believe we'd better do anything before he is well enough to hear all about it. Doctor Leslie thinks he'll get along all right now."
"All except his little finger," said Brown. "But I think Ward's right. We don't want to report it before Jack knows all about it. We can keep our eyes open though, and may be we'll find out who did it. Somebody's rapping, Ward."
"I know it," replied Ward. "Let him keep on, we don't want him in here, whoever he is."
Nevertheless he went to the door, but he almost stumbled backward when he opened it, and beheld Tim Pickard and Ripley standing before him.
He was too astonished to speak, but the new-comers did not wait for an invitation to enter the room, for they at once came in, and Ward not knowing what to make of the visit and the visitors, quietly closed the door and again locked it.
CHAPTER XXIV