"Take hold of this, Bobolink, and handle it carefully, because we don't know what's in the package. It might be dynamite!" he remarked.
"Oh! I hope not!" exclaimed the one in whose arms the bundle reposed; and he did not look any too happy at the prospect ahead.
"Don't be silly," said Paul, as he dropped beside them. "But whatever it may be, we might as well hide it in a new place. Then if the fellow should come back here to get it, he's going to meet with a disappointment, that's all."
"But what d'ye think it is?" argued the one who clasped the large package in his arms, though with evident reluctance.
"That is none of our business just now. It may be honest enough, and we'd get into a peck of trouble if we peeked. So let's just chuck it in some hollow stump as we go along, and muffle our trail behind us so he can't find where we put it. Later on I think I know some one who will be glad to look into what it contains."
"Perhaps I do too," remarked Jack; and the two chums looked at each other, with mutual astonishment marked on their faces.
"Oh!" remarked Paul, "are you on, too? Did he tell you the secret?"
"I happened to pick up an envelope he dropped, and wondered whose it was; so I went around, asking. He laughed when I came to him, and told me a little bit of news that surprised me. But Paul, he asked me not to breathe a word, even to you. That was a mean joke, when you knew all along," Jack complained.
"Remember the red car on the road, and the two men in it?"
"Oh! did they have anything to do with his coming up here? Yes, now that I think of it, you were pretty much excited over that same red car. You guessed something then, didn't you, Paul?"