“That’s just what I do think, my lad; and I feel as if it was my fault for sending him hunting and collecting by himself, instead of us waiting on him and watching him.”
“Shaddy, don’t say anything has happened to him!” cried Rob in horror.
“I don’t say as there is,” said Shaddy; “I don’t say as there ain’t, my lad: but you see that,” he said, pointing down, “and you know that Mr Brazier’s a fine brave English gentleman, but, like all the natural history people I ever see, so full of what he’s doing that he forgets all about himself and runs into all kinds of danger.”
“But what kind of danger could he have run into here?”
“Don’t know, my lad—don’t know. All I do know is that he has been here and got into trouble.”
“But you don’t know that he has been here,” cried Rob passionately.
“What’s this, then?” said Shaddy, holding out a piece of string, which he had picked up unnoticed by his companion. “Mr Brazier had got one of his pockets stuffed full of bits o’ spun yarn and band, like that as we used to tie up his plants with, and it looks to me as if he’d dropped this.”
“But couldn’t— Oh no, of course not—it’s impossible,” cried Rob; “no one else could have been here?”
“No, sir; no one else could have been here.”
“Yes, they could,” cried Rob excitedly: “enemies!”