"Don't you recognize his voice?" asked Nels in reply. "There's more'n one of 'em, and they are the men who have been hunting for you for a week past."
"I am glad to hear it," said Rodney. "Perhaps they will be able to clear away some of the ridiculous suspicions you seem to have got into your heads concerning me."
"Get out, ye whelps," shouted Jeff, when he stepped out of the door; whereupon the dogs ceased their clamor and slunk away behind the cabin to escape the clubs he threw among them to enforce obedience to his order. "Come on, strangers. They won't pester you."
Then came a tramping of hoofs, as if a small body of cavalry was making its way through the bushes, and a minute afterward Rodney could look through the open door and see half a dozen men dismounting from their horses. He saw Jeff exchange a few hasty words with the tall, black-whiskered man who was the first to touch the ground, and heard the exclamations of surprise which the latter uttered as he listened to them. He could not understand what the man said, but the woodcutter near the door did, for he called out:
"He's come back sure's you live, and Nels has got his watch to prove it.
He knowed him the minute he seed the chain that's fast to it."
"Well, if that is the case, whom have we got here?" said the black-whiskered man; and this time Rodney heard the words very plainly. "Where is he? Let me have a look at him."
Jeff waved his hand toward the door and the man stepped in and faced Rodney, who arose to his feet and met his gaze without flinching. One glance brought from him a sigh of relief. He had an intelligent man to talk to now—one who could be reasoned with.
"There's the watch that has brought suspicion upon me in a way I cannot understand," said Rodney, nodding toward Nels, who promptly handed it over. "Will you be kind enough to open it and read the inscription you will find on the inside of the case."
The man took the watch, and while he was opening it kept his eyes fastened upon Rodney's face. He seemed both amused and angry.
"Jeff," he exclaimed at length. "I never knew before that you were such a blockhead. There is about as much resemblance between this young gentleman and that horse-thief outside as there is between you and me."