“I want a chance for a little talk with you, Silas,” said Andy. “I want to show you how much I appreciate what you have done for me.”
The merry, happy coterie crossed the field, and coming out at a gate made a short cut for the Parks camp. They had just neared it, when among the crowd thronging about the place, Andy made out a boy edging towards him.
He crowded past several persons and came up to Andy’s side and caught his sleeve.
“Andy,” he said in a bold but sheepish way, “you know me, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, I know you,” answered Andy.
He stared in mingled surprise, perplexity and distrust at the speaker.
It was Dale Billings. Hungry-faced, unkempt looking, as if he had not slept for a week, and then in a hay mow or a freight car. Andy’s old-time enemy confronted him in the hour of his great triumph.
CHAPTER XXIV—A HOPEFUL CLEW
“Did you want to see me, Dale,” inquired Andy.
“Yes, I do, and bad,” responded Dale Billings. “See here, you’ve won a big race. You’re rich. If it hadn’t been for me and Gus Talbot, you wouldn’t be.”