“Well, as I’m here, safe and sound, there is no further need of anxiety, and as for your curiosity to hear what I have to tell, I’ll relieve that while we’re at dinner. Come on! I’m hungry and I reckon the rest of you are, too. Anyhow, what I’ve got to tell you is well worth hearing, and I shall not tell you a word till we sit down on our haunches and begin to enjoy again the flavor of that venison, broiled on the live coals. You haven’t cooked it yet, have you?”
“No. We got the chops ready for the fire, and then I whistled for you, so that we might all have them fresh from the coals. As you didn’t come, we got uneasy and went to look for you. So come on and we’ll have a late dinner and sharp appetites.”
No sooner were the juicy venison chops taken from the fire and served upon a piece of bark that did duty as a platter than the demand for the story of Tom’s morning adventure became clamorous.
With a chop in one hand and half an ash cake in the other, Tom told all that he had done and seen, giving the details as the reader already knows them. Then, after finishing the meal and washing his hands, face and head in the salt water of the creek, he set forth the conclusions and conjectures he had formed.
“In the first place,” he said, “I am certain that our late visitor—he with the game leg—is the only person anywhere around. We are in no danger of an attack, either by night or by day, until his comrades, whoever they may be, come here and join him. We have no need of doing sentry duty out there at the gum tree, except to keep a sufficient lookout to make sure that we know when they do come. In my opinion that will be at night sometime.”
“Why do you think so, Tom?”
“Simply because it is evident that they don’t come here for any good or lawful purpose. If that lame fellow with the whisky jug is a fair sample of the crew, they are the sort that prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil.”
“Who do you think they are, Tom?” asked Cal, “and what, in your opinion, are they up to?”