I doubt if Colonel Buckstone could have had a more able assistant in the task which lay before him that night, for in his lighter moods the Colonel was a most industrious merrymaker. We saw them buying another dog on the station platform, and presently they started for an inn, with two quarreling dogs and the bag and the gold-headed cane and the beaver hat, all in the possession of the faithful Giles.
“I have secured the letters,” said Smead. “As I suspected, they were in a pocket of this overcoat, and we can return to Griggsby by the midnight train; you must never tell what you know of this—not a word, not a syllable. He will land in New York in a day or two—always points that way when he's drinking—and will not think of the letter for weeks, anyhow. Tell Florence to write to her father and explain the Colonel's rage. That will take the edge off his razor.”
I promised, and we were soon riding back to Griggsby. It was a sleepless but a happy and wonderful night for me and Mr. Smead.
Early in the morning he went to the dormitory with a note that I had written to Florence. When I met her she took my hand, but did not speak. I knew why. For a long minute we walked together in silence; then she said, rather brokenly: “Havelock, you are the most wonderful boy that I ever met, and I owe you everything. What can I do for?”
The words were a new blow to me, for, as the read will understand, they put her farther away.
“Please take that back,” I said, almost woefully. “Please do not think that you owe me anything. I don't want you to feel that way. I didn't—”
I was about to say that it was not I who had obtained the letter from the Colonel, but I halted, suddenly remembering my promise.
“You strange, modest boy!” she exclaimed. “Don't you want me to be grateful to you?”
“Florence,” I said, with all the seriousness of my nature, “I'd almost rather you'd hate me.”
I have never forgotten the look in her face then, and how quickly it changed color. A sorry fool I was not to have understood it; but, then, what did I know about women? She, too, knew as little of the heart of a Puritan lad who had grown up in the edge of a wilderness.