The man grinned. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“You might start at the very beginning and save us asking you a lot of questions,” Jack said.
“Well,” he began, speaking low and lazily, “I really had no idea that he would show up. And by the way, this is the pilot.”
William and Jack nodded. They had suspected it, but were not quite sure.
“As I was saying,” continued the government agent, “I really had no suspicion that he would return. But I figured that if he did take it into his head to do so, what would be his object? He certainly would not take it upon himself to rescue his friends. That would be foolish and stupid. But if he still insisted on coming, he would have a good reason for doing so. For example, he might want to get something, something valuable. Then where would he go?”
He paused and waited for someone to answer. Jack did, saying, “To the cave.”
“Quite right,” responded the agent. “Therefore, not wanting to take any chances, I decided to guard the cave all night long. But I also didn’t want to scare you boys in case one of you should discover that I was gone. So I used the stones and sticks to give the impression that I was still here and fast asleep.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?” demanded Wallace.
“I didn’t want you boys to be uneasy.”