“What’s the idea of disappearing without telling us?” they were reproached.
William shook a threatening finger under his brother’s nose. “You ever do that again,” he warned, “and I’ll—I’ll spank you.”
The boys laughed. Paul said, “They’re hungry, fellows. Let them eat first and then we’ll make them tell us all about it.”
Jack and Wallace had their lunch. The other boys gathered around the two and Wallace told the first part of the story. When he was through talking, some of the boys shook their heads in amazement. William exclaimed dolefully, “And you never even mentioned it to us.”
Wallace was embarrassed. He replied modestly, “There was nothing to tell. It might have sounded fishy.”
Jack then appropriated the floor and narrated their adventures of that morning. In conclusion, he said, “You fellows now know all the facts. I must impress upon you, however, the necessity of absolute secrecy. To begin with, the wrong ears may hear the story and then it will be too bad. Secondly, there is not enough evidence to call in the police. There is nothing we can prove. They would say that we invented it all just to get a lot of publicity. And that isn’t true, is it fellows?”
Ken contributed the remark, “If this thing is ever solved, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”
They all agreed that that was right.
William inquired, “But isn’t there something we can do now?”
Paul replied, “Yes, there is.” The boys were all attention. “What we can do now,” he said, “is to break camp and move. We’ll postpone further discussion until after we have pitched camp again at the old site.”