"Don't lug me off," he screamed. "I'd have to go to jail."
"You wouldn't so long as we kept the thing a secret," Fred replied, with a feeling of mingled pity and contempt because of the abject terror displayed. "We must take you with us; but needn't tell about your villainy."
"Then father would just about beat me to death for runnin' away. Why not let me stay here? I'll never hurt you or anybody else again."
Although Skip had tried to kill them, the boys felt a certain sense of aversion to dragging him away while he pleaded so piteously, and in order to gain time in which to think the matter over, Sam said:
"Tell us how you got into the lower level."
In a faltering voice Skip gave a truthful account of all his movements on that particular day.
"Have you been here ever since?"
"Yes."
"And Billings, too?"