“I told you the truth,” replied the boy, retreating hastily toward the door as Pierre advanced upon him. “Wilson was certainly in this room, because we all saw him when he made an attempt to climb out of that hole in the loft. Look around a little. He’s here, I know he is.”
Pierre, who believed that Bayard was trying to mislead him for some purpose of his own, and who had been on the point of giving him a good shaking with a view of forcing the real facts of the case out of him, looked toward the other boys for a confirmation of this story. Seth and Will loudly protested that their cousin had told the truth, and nothing but the truth, and Pierre, being in some measure convinced by their earnestness, lifted the table from the floor, and after pushing it against the wall to enable it to retain an upright position, placed his candle upon it, and set to work to give the apartment a thorough overhauling.
“If they were in the room when I reached the house, they must be here now,” said he, “for there is no way for them to get out except through the door and that hole in the loft. Move everything, and we’ll find them.”
Suiting the action to the word, Pierre seized one of the beds, and pulled it into the middle of the floor, and there, snugly hidden behind a pile of saddles, old blankets, boots, hats, boxes, and a variety of other articles that had been thrown under the couch for safekeeping, was Henry Chase. Pierre had looked under that same bed when he first came in; but as it was dark in the room—there being no windows in the house—and his examination had been hastily made, Chase had escaped his observation.
“Here’s one of them!” exclaimed Pierre, seizing the fugitive by the collar and lifting him to his feet.
“What did we tell you?” cried Bayard. “Are you satisfied now that we knew what we were talking about?”
“Where’s the other fellow—what’s his name?” demanded Pierre.
“Wilson,” suggested Seth.
“I’m sure I don’t know where he is,” answered Chase, and he told the truth. Just before he dived under the bed, he saw Wilson running frantically about the room as if he did not know which way to turn, but where he went, Chase had not the remotest idea. “And if I did know I wouldn’t tell you,” he added, boldly.