“It strikes me that you took a queer location for your resting-place on the way out,” Alex put in.
“Over there, a few hundred yards,” Frank explained, “I found a pretty fair hotel—in a tree! It seemed to me, at that time to be about the neatest, coziest little hotel on earth!”
“Hotel?” repeated Clay, wondering if the strange boy was at last about to talk of the mystery which surrounded him, after a silence of weeks.
“You see,” Frank continued, “when I came down the river I had—well, I had something in my possession which—there was something the other people wanted, you understand. They had followed me pretty closely from Cloud island, and I thought I’d drop in here and let them go by.”
“And they did?” asked Clay, disappointed at the guarded tone of the boy. “Did they go by?”
“After three days,” was the reply. “It was while I was hiding in the tree hotel I’ve been telling you about that I saw—well, that I came upon—or, rather, that I arranged for the cargo that we may be able to turn into money—when we come to the ships that are going to Europe!”
“I’d like to know what you’re talking about!” exclaimed Alex. “There is about as much coherence to your explanation as there is to a railroad freight schedule. What was it you ‘arranged for?’”
“Where is Cloud island?” demanded Jule, not waiting for the boy to reply.
Frank flushed, as if caught in some dishonorable evasion of the truth, and remained silent.
“How long will it take to get this may-be cargo out?” asked Clay, as much to break the painful silence as for any other purpose.