"I don't but I guess I can wait. Only I do think you ought to have something cooked up that would stop their questions. Will you leave it to me?"
"Surest thing you know. What'll you say?"
"That's my secret. You play up to my leads, that's all you've got to do. Hello, bunch!" he shouted.
"Wow! Hooray! There he is!" came cries of delight from the darkness in the direction of the river, and a moment later the boys, who had been almost frantic with worry over the non-appearance of Jerry, came trooping up. When they found Tod with him, their joy was unbounded. Their excited questions and exclamations of surprise gave Jerry a much-needed instant in which to collect his story-inventing wits. At last Phil quieted down his dancing mob and put the question Jerry had been awaiting:
"How did you do it?"
"That's the funny part of it. I didn't. Tod's dad came along and did it for me."
"I hope he beat up that old grouch——"
"Huh, you got another guess coming. They're old friends——yes," as a cry of unbelief went up, "that's why Tod was in no hurry to be rescued. His name's Billings, and Mr. Fulton used to be in business with him. Is yet, isn't he, Tod?"
"Uhuh—I think so."
"Well, you may know there's fish around Lost Island. Billings is what I call a fish hog. He don't want anybody to know about the place—wants it all for himself. Tod drifts onto the island and the man can't very well throw him off, half drowned as he is. Then, when he gets the water out of Tod, all but his brain, he finds it's the son of his partner, and he can't very well throw him off then. There's a girl on that mound out there, and she comes in with a string of the biggest fish you ever saw. You couldn't drive Tod off with a club after that. After the fish, I mean, not the girl. He gets a message to his father, and makes his plans to stay there all summer, but dad comes down to-night and spoils his plans by dragging him off. He kind of thinks he doesn't want all the fish dragged out by the tails—he likes to hook a few big ones himself. I'd got out into the middle of the Plum when I heard the sound of prodigious weeping—it was Tod, saying a last farewell to the big fishes—and the little girl.