“What did you tell him for?”
“O, because,” said Rollo, “we were talking, and I told him.”
“I hope you did not tell him where we hid Mosette, behind the rock.”
“Why—yes,” said Rollo, “I believe I did.”
“Then I am afraid you will never see poor Mosette again,” said Jonas.
“Why,” said Rollo, “you don’t think that he would go and get him.”
“I don’t know,” said Jonas, “what he would do; but I should not have wanted to tell such a boy any thing about him.”
Rollo began to be alarmed. He went back to his father, and asked him to let him and Jonas go on before the rest, to see if their bird was safe. His father told him he might go. “But,” said he, “I am afraid you have lost your bird; when a boy allows himself to get into bad company, he does not know how many troubles he plunges himself into.”
Rollo and Jonas ran on, and soon disappeared among the trees. Rollo found it hard to keep up, as the road was not very smooth, though they had got down the steepest part of the mountain. Jonas kept hold of Rollo’s hand, and went on running and walking alternately, until they got down to the end of the trees and bushes, and then they came out in sight of the place where the horses were tied.
It was fortunate for poor Mosette, and for Rollo too, that they did thus run on before, for it happened that Jim, and the boys with him, had come down the mountain by another road, and were just going up to the place as Jonas and Rollo came out of the woods.